Your Ashes on Wax: AndVinyly Is Putting the Fun Back in Funeral

The process is not only reserved for human beings. Be it your hamster or your schnauzer, your pet is also eligible to be memorialized forever in vinyl.

Cremation (and possibly dismemberment) costs aside, the £2000 ($3,080 US) price tag includes:

*Your ashes pressed into the vinyl surface of up to 30 records of up to 12 minutes per side (24 minutes total).

*A record cover with “standard R.I.V. artwork” (‘Rest in Vinyl’ in case you were wondering, which from the looks of things is a black cover with your name and birth and death dates on a black sleeve in Minion Pro font).

You supply the audio and the ashes, and AndVinyly does the rest.

And they offer extras in spades.

If pressing a meaningful song from your life, the revving engine of your Prius (so close to silent), or the popping of an empty disc in a room full of grieving relatives isn’t unique enough for you, you can get the electronic musicians of The House of Fix or Daftwerk to take direction from you or simply press off one of their already existing songs (which can be heard at the website if you happen to select a track that works) for a mere £500 per track.

So if you feel concerned that your wake and funeral won’t call back memories of black painted plywood, the smell of smoke and Red Bull and the sound of a strange teenager coming to stark reality from a K-hole with a series of mind melting shrieks that overpower the throbbing monotony of the bass line and your dangerously dipping ecstasy buzz, you can ensure that those in the know will be taken back with vivid clarity to those halcion days with the drop of a needle on your dead, dead body.

For the price of £3,500 ($5,402 US) per painting, you could have your portrait painted by none other than the illustrious National Portrait Gallery painter James Hague.

This, of course, does not include (if you have the foresight to have the painting done while you’re still alive) the cost of sitting for the painter (£300/$463 US per hour) or the printing of the 30 record sleeves (£500/$772US, for which they generously include the printing of the labels).

Should you perhaps be unable to find a friend to run your final salutation through Garage Band to add a “sonic template” behind your recorded voice, AndVinyly will gladly mix in “predertmined backing tracks to spice up your vocal recording eg. ambient, classical, electro, haunting, celebration, reggae, rock, punk, space, 1960’s/70’s etc.” that last 3 minutes each for the entirely reasonable cost of £250 ($386 US).

If, for any reason, you would prefer to have your funeral “event” hosted by a “team of experienced event organisers” rather than your closest family and friends who, let’s face it, will probably be too sad to spin you in style, the starting price of a so called FUNeral is £10,000 ($15,434 US).

The haunted eyes of a club kid named Neltron can come to startling life as her buzz kicks in and she gets the party started right for those you’ve left behind in a venue they have had to hunt down in a warehouse district with cryptic fliers and no listed address. By the time your mom gets there, it will all be over, a final ‘Fuck you, I’ll come home when I bloody well want to! And that’s never!’ ringing forever in her ears.

Community Connection

Vinyl isn’t the only way to go. 10 Extraordinary Burial Ceremonies From Around the World presents the Skull Burial from Kiribati, and the Predator Burial of the Maasai Tribe of East Africa.

Also on BNT: A Traveler’s Guide to the History of Death.