Beck’s extends its Record Label project with launch of world’s first playable bottle via Shine

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BecksEdisonBottle_Hero.jpg19th Century technology meets 21st Century music over a bottle of beer in the latest extension to the Beck’s Record Label project via Shine NZ.

This time, the art label has evolved, and been replaced by the grooves of Auckland band Ghost Wave. Their new single was inscribed into the surface of a Beck’s beer bottle which could then be played on a specially-built device based on Thomas Edison’s original phonograph.

a49e6a67d1bbeed42a5e6dc936b2be04.jpgMaking the world’s first playable beer bottle was a formidable technical challenge. The clever people at Auckland firm Gyro Constructivists first had to design and build a record-cutting lathe, driven by a hard drive recording head. Then they BecksEdisonBottle_Hero45.jpgreinvented Edison’s original cylinder player, using modern materials and electronics and built to very fine tolerances. The Edison Bottle made its public debut at SemiPermanent in Auckland in May to a standing ovation from the assembled media and design community.

Beck’s has had a long association with music and art. In fact, at about the same time Heinrich Beck was brewing his first beer in the 1870s, Tom Edison was tinkering away on designs for the first phonograph. Considering how beer has influenced recorded music since then, this physical collaboration was very appropriate and long overdue.

Says Mathew Tizard, creative technologist, Shine: “We wanted to do something special, and turn the bottle itself into the art object. I was reminded of Edison’s phonograph cylinders when holding a bottle of Beck’s. So we decided that there could be no closer fusion of the band’s music and the brand’s beer than to turn the bottle into a medium for recorded music.

“In a pleasing coincidence, Heinrich Beck was brewing his first batch of beer at the same time as Thomas Edison was inventing the phonograph, on the other side of the Atlantic in the late 19th Century.

“Some 600 hours of research & development later, with Auckland’s Gyro Constructivists as the build partner, we achieved our goal.”

Client: Beck’s New Zealand

Creative Agency: Shine Limited

Machine & Bottle Production: Gyro Constructivists

Making-of Video Production: VICE

Record Label: Arch Hill Recordings

Band: Ghost Wave

Album: Ages

Featured Single: Here She Comes