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How much more normalized and present-day does a record player get when when its needle is an ice cream cone? Or a bird skull?Michael Ridge, a multimedia artist based in Virginia, employs a collection of seemingly random items to act as his record player’s needle—all documented in his capsule of Vimeo videos.The art of producing and sound-mixing gets a touch bizarre as Ridge employs a cactus, a bird’s head, and even a lightly salted tortilla chip to coax out strains of audio from each vinyl album. Strings of high-pitched chirping warble out with the bird head’s beak dropped on the track. The lo-fi sound of Los Norte Americanos’ “The Band I Heard in Tijuana Volume 3” finds its tune with the rigid tortilla chip. The effect is humorous, visually simple, and a little weird.Listen to and watch every inventive record needle below:Check out more of Michael Ridge’s audio and artwork on his Vimeo page, here.Related:Hear Music Played Off a Laser-Etched TortillaIntroducing Phenakistomixer: A Turntable That Lets You DJ Live AnimationsArtist Turns a Record Player Into An Automatic Illustrator
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