The songs played by this music box may have been composed on Earth, but its design is certainly otherworldly.
I’ve always been fascinated with musical boxes and the magic that goes into them. These are wonderful mechanisms that use steel combs and pins to accurately create musical notes. The following one made my heart skip a beat not only because of its jaw-dropping design, but also because of melodies it plays. MB&F, which stands for Maximilian Busser & Friends, is a creative laboratory based in Switzerland (where else?!) specialized in making 3D time pieces. MusicMachine represents a turn from the company’s sensational horological machines, as it does not tell the time. It still represents an exquisite creation, nonetheless.
Maximilian Busser goes to explain in an interview you can watch at the end of this post that musical boxes have a lot in common with watchmaking. The barrels and the cylinders of the MusicMachine are placed on what looks like a spaceship. Considering that half of the tunes the music box plays are Sci-Fi related, the design makes a lot of sense.
After winding up the barrels, the pins placed on each of the handcrafted cylinders start to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. And then magic starts to happen. The left cylinder is packed with melodies that could make the heart of every geek out there melt, while the right one plays immortal rock tunes.
More precisely, the left cylinder plays the Star Wars and Star Trek themes, as well as the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back, while the right one plays three songs that defined Busser’s first 20 years of life: Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and Imagine by John Lennon. While Pink Floyd can be undoubtedly classified as progressive rock, Deep Purple and The Beatles (and Lennon, by extension) are proto-prog, so if you think that the title of the post is a bit misleading, I disagree. After seeing the MusicMachine, I’ve added Maximilian Busser to the list of people I’d like to shake hands with, not only because of his incredibly creative mind, but also because of the exquisite musical taste that he has.
[vimeo 64621406 w=600 h=338]
The MusicMachine By MB&F And Reuge, Explained By Max Büsser from HODINKEE on Vimeo.
As seen in the images, MusicMachine will be available in two colors: black and white. Manufacturing these musical boxes must have involved a lot of effort, both physical and financial. Hence, MusicMachine is available as a limited edition product, and only 33 pieces in each color will be sold. The price is currently unknown, and it’s probably for the best, as the common folk won’t afford buying such an outstanding music box. It should be noted that the MusicMachine was created by MB&F in cooperation with Reuge, who is the actual manufacturer of the product. Reuge is a Swiss musical box manufacturer that has been around since 1865, so there is a lot of history behind its mechanisms.
If you liked this post, please check the music box with wheels and the Super Mario Bros music box.
