Tag Archives: Alex Fredlund

A phonograph record made out of ice

Thanks to Jordan Kushins’s Dec.  27, 2012 article (on the Fast Company Co-Design website) about the Shout Out Louds band and their attempts, against professional and scientific advice, to create a record made out of ice (Note: Links removed),

…  they wanted something special to introduce “Blue Ice,” the first single off their upcoming Optica, to the world. In collaboration with the creative folks at ad agency TBWA Stockholm, they came up with a way to transform the physicality of vinyl into something more ephemeral. “The concept isn’t that complicated, since the song is about fading love,” TBWA art director Alex Fredlund tells Co.Design. “But to actually make a record out of ice was a different story.”

“We talked to professors at different universities telling us it would never work out, so we had to develop the technique ourselves,” he says. After receiving a negative imprint of the song’s master cut, they started experimenting; the office became a kind of amateur chemistry lab, and the team spent hours testing different types of liquid, various drying techniques, and multiple kinds of molds.

There are longer videos embedded into the Kushins’ article which give insight into the process and demonstrate the final product. This briefer (2 mins., 13 secs.) video shows one of the attempts to create an ice record and is from the Shout Out Louds’ website,

Here’s a brief description of the Shout Out Louds from a Wikipedia entry,

Shout Out Louds are an indie rock band from Stockholm, Sweden.

The group has toured with bands such as The Strokes, Kings of Leon, The Magic Numbers, The Rosebuds, The Essex Green, and Johnossi. Their songs have been featured in the television shows Chuck, The O.C., How I Met Your Mother and One Tree Hill, the movies Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, What Happens in Vegas… and Eye Trip, and the video games MLB 06: The Show and Major League Baseball 2K11. The band’s music videos have also been featured on TV Guide’s “M-Vids” and AOL’s Music on Demand services.

The project seems à propos both to Sweden and the season.