Even in death we are only limited by our imagination in how we want to go out. There are now ways to turn our corpse into a tree, or have our ashes shot into space, or press our ashes into diamonds–I believe Superman is involved in that last one. And now for the music lover, a company called And Vinyly will press your ashes into a playable vinyl record.
You like that punny company name? There’s more: the business lets the dear departed “Live on from beyond the groove.” Hear that groan? That’s the deceased literally spinning in their grave…on a turntable.
The UK-based company has been around since 2009, when Jason Leach launched it “just for fun” at first. But a lot of people liked the idea and have kept him in business.
It will cost, however. The basic service generally costs between £1000 and £3000 GBP, and it partly depends on how many vinyl records you produce. From what we can tell, you cannot use copyright-protected music to fill up the 18–22 minutes per side. So no “Free Bird” or “We Are the Champions,” unfortunately. But you can put anything else: a voice recording, or the sounds of nature, or complete silence. Get more information over at the company’s FAQ.
No doubt, the service can provide comfort and a memory trigger for those left behind. The above video, “Hearing Madge,” is a short doc about a son who took recordings of his mother and used And Vinyly to make a record out of them. It’s sweet.
“I’m sure a lot of people think that it’s creepy, a lot of people think it’s sacrilegious,” the man says. “But I know my mother wouldn’t have. She would’ve thought it was a hoot.”
Jason Leach, a musician and vinyl collector himself, talks of the immediacy of sound and what it means to many.
“Sound is vibrating you, the room, and it’s actually moving the air around you,” he says. “And that’s what’s so powerful about hearing someone’s voice on a record. They’re actually moving the air and for me that’s powerful.”
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2017.
Related Content:
Bronze Age Britons Turned Bones of Dead Relatives into Musical Instruments & Ornaments
Death: A Free Online Philosophy Course from Yale Helps You Grapple with the Inescapable
Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts.
