LimeWire Music Blog

What happens when celebrity chefs and crafty musicians come together? If you guessed food-related musical instruments, you’d be correct. Chef Heston Blumenthal and musician Matthew Herbert are teaming up to create a woodwind instrument made exclusively from…pig bones.  Cooooooool.

Blumenthal, who has been known for several food-based experiments over the years, has revealed that he intends to raise and slaughter a pig for the instrument. Naturally, the pig will be prepared for consumption, while the bones will be used to construct a flute.  Herbert, a musician known best for his experimental/avant-garde leanings, will be constructing an entire record (appropriately titled One Pig), based upon the pig’s life and death.

The flute will be used throughout the album, no doubt, while the pig will be consumed at a banquet commemorating the experiment.  Herbert has released a statement to justify this bizarre technique. “There is all this locked-up potential in sound,” he states.  “That is what my work is about – it is the artist’s responsibility to make connections, no matter how absurd they are and where they lead us to.”

As for me, I’m intrigued, not just by the more ritualistic, sacrificial aspect of the project (which appeals to both the foodie and horror fan in me), but as one who always appreciates the avant-garde, I’m curious to hear and see the final product.