Everyone likes a good gimmick. Who doesn't?

While AI can impress all of us by rendering endless pictures of "Barbershop quartet of singing mailboxes," it is neither powerful nor creative enough to conjure up such a concept all on its own. Those days may be fleeting but, as of this writing, when it comes to realizing truly original concepts, humanity still has the upper hand.

Therefore, it's always nice to see people think "outside of the box," if you will. Sometimes, in the world of music, that means some pretty bizarre formats in how they deliver it. Flexi-discs, for example, are a form of vinyl records that were printed on very flexible pieces of plastic that were not much thicker than wrapping paper. The concept was straight-forward enough: The more that a product weighs, the more expensive it is to transport and, likely, the more expensive it is to create.

One application of the format was for people to record their voice (a few moments of it, at any rate) and press that onto a post card that could be shipped by postal mail and played on a record player. The concept didn't pan out (most gimmicks don't; that's why they're called "gimmicks") but it did demonstrate the versatility of human creativity despite a lack of resources that we enjoy in our modern era.

Another odd concept is to simply do away with a playable storage medium, such as a record, and merely provide the entire mechanism to play your musical composition. The concept isn't as bizarre as you might think: Certain birthday cards, upon opening them, play a small musical tune. The cards are expensive and the music is the typical bleeps and bloops that one expects from the chiptune era but the overall effect is impressive, especially when they were first introduced to the paying public.

Tristan Perich is an artist who decided to take that concept one step further and issue his "album" as an electronic device sold just as a typical compact disc would normally be. Everything that one needed to listen to the music was there, from storage medium to speaker to battery. Even the source code and schematic were available, as well. Obviously, such an effort couldn't be mass-produced unless one had the resources of, say, Taylor Swift. While second-guessing Ms. Swift's business strategy for her music is always a fool's errand, the smart money is that she's probably not going to be breaking into the chiptune genre anytime soon.

The music on Tristan Perich's album "1-bit symphony" is definitely an acquired taste; No one expects such a venture to receive heaps of praise from the likes of Rolling Stone magazine. But one also doesn't have to. Despite the limitations of the device (and it is decidedly limited), it still delivers something akin to music.

Would I want to listen to the entire recording in one sitting? No. But everyone loves a good gimmick. Who doesn't?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apDFVsBDCYE