We get some truly awful stuff sent to us, but recently our mailboxes were graced with the latest edition of Visionaire, the three-times-per-year limited-edition art and fashion publication. Past issues have focused on things like smell, toys and the seven deadly sins, but the fifty-third edition appealed to your pals at Rock Daily: V’s editors asked musicians, actors, designers, comedians and other folks to come up with approximately one minute of sound. The result? Unreleased and reinvented tracks, totally new compositions and some wackiness from U2, Cat Power, Danger Mouse, Courtney Love, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock, Michael Stipe and Fergie (and many more).
The issue is packaged as an obsidian sphere containing five 12′’ picture discs — each side is adorned with stunning artwork by folks including Ryan McGinley and Raymond Pettibon — and a small car that rides along the records called a Vinyl Killer (it’s got a needle in the bottom of the car and a small speaker on top that spits out some tinny but usable sound). Thankfully, the album’s tracks are also provided on two CDs, because putting the records onto your iPod would’ve been a huge bitch. Among the other musicians contributing are Panda Bear, Spank Rock, Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, DNTEL and Lee Ranaldo. If you’ve got $250 to spare, you can be the owner of one of the 4,000 copies in this limited edition. Just see if you can fight the temptation to frame the vinyls and put them on your wall.