Service presses loved ones’ ashes as a playable vinyl record

The UK's And Vinyly is enabling the recently departed to have their ashes pressed as a vinyl record.

Remembering loved ones is a highly personal experience, and placing ashes into an urn can be too traditional for some. The first of our Weird of the Week series focused on Holy Smokes, a service that puts ashes into bullets. Now the UK’s And Vinyly is enabling the recently departed to have their ashes pressed as a vinyl record.

Founded by Jason Leach, who also runs a number of record labels such as Subhead, Daftwerk and Death to Vinyl, the service allows anyone to have a loved one’s ashes pressed as a working record, where it can be accompanied by music, the sound of their voice or simply left blank — allowing the pops and clicks to provide an audio representation of the ashes. The ashes are placed onto the raw piece of vinyl before it gets pressed, enabling the ashes to be compressed into the material. Each record comes with personalized artwork — either a simple name and date of birth and death, or a portrait by artist James Hague, who creates his images using ashes mixed into the paint. The GBP 2,000 package gets customers 30 discs with the sounds of their choice, or they can also have a Daftwerk artist record a song about the deceased.

While some may feel uncomfortable handling the ashes of their loved ones, others may cherish the opportunity to connect with them after they die through a very personal artifact. What other unusual ways are there to commemorate the dead?

Spotted by Denise Kuperman, written by Springwise