Hologram Vinyl? You betcha! Jack White's Experiments In Vinyl

TWO words: vinyl hologram. Sound exciting? You know it does. This is just one of the innovations on Jack White's October vinyl release of Lazaretto.

Forward-thinking merchandising such as this is one of the reasons for the recent upsurge in vinyl sales. Famous for reinventing and recalibrating blues punk rock in his own image, it's not surprising Mr White is getting involved.

The record, called the 'Ultra LP', was released by Third Man Records in October and features some nifty tricks:

• Side A of the record plays from the inside outwards
• When the song gets to the edge it loops the last few bars of the song over and over
• Dual-groove technology: plays an electric or acoustic intro for “Just One Drink” depending on where needle is dropped. The grooves meet for the body of the song
• Two vinyl-only hidden tracks hidden beneath the centre labels
• 1 hidden track plays at 78 RPM, one plays at 45 RPM, making it a 3-speed record
• Zero compression used in the mastering

One of the most impressive features is the hand-etched hologram of a spinning angel on Side A by artist Tristan Duke of Infinity Light Science, the first of its kind on a vinyl record.

But what other tricks did the team come up with that didn't make the cut? We got hold of the meeting notes:

• If you play the record backwards it reads Jack White's personal phone number.
• A subliminal message tells the listener to buy the White Stripes' back catalogue.
• A supra-frequency undetectable to the human ear takes over all networked devices in the vicinity - playing the music from phones, printers print out album artwork, laptops logon to Youtube to show the video
• When the needle hits the end of the record it flips a switch which lifts the needle off the record automatically.

Lazaretto is available on iTunes and amazon.

Macho Zapp Launches

WELCOME. We are proud and excited to say the Macho Zapp website is now online.

But with all the music magazines and websites already out there, what is the point of Macho Zapp?

It hardly needs saying that the world of music has changed massively over the last 10 years - and not just in the way we consume music. The huge and consistent transfer of knowledge across the world means our collective musical consciousness is constantly expanding and refining itself, pushing us into uncharted territory.

Music magazines, quite rightly, focus closely on the artists and their releases since they are the touchstones and leaders of music. But there also needs to be a lens held up to the why and the how.

This means examining the tiny details - the movement of a DJ’s crossfader or the smallest vibrations of a record needle. And it also means exploring the big questions - why are we obsessed with rhythm? What will the next innovation be?

This is the reason for Macho Zapp - to seek the answers to these questions and at the same time look for the new and intriguing perspective.

Check out this month's immersive multimedia feature Needle Habit here.

The Trouble With Scoring Sci-Fi

"How can music express the unimaginable?" asked The Arts Desk this week.

In his article Graham Rickson expertly relates the varying efforts of film composers to capture 'the great beyond' of sci-fi.

Beginning with Haydn's opera Life On the Moon and stopping by way of Bernard Herrmann's use of the (Star Trek-famed) theremin on The Day The Earth Stood Still in 1951, he still finds time to dismiss Hans Zimmer's recent Interstellar score as overdone saying that Zimmer mistakes "high volume for gravitas".

So which came top of the list? His favourite soundtrack is "the one assembled by husband and wife team Louis and Bebe Barron for MGM's 1954 update of The Tempest, Forbidden Planet".