Ok, I am on a roll here. A few days ago, I blogged about Visionaire’s Solar issue. Thanks to a well-connected little bird, I got my hands and ears on a back issue of the legendary Visionaire 53: Sound (Dec 2007).

Packaged inside a sleek domed case, the audio publication consisted of five 12-inch vinyl records (which also included digital versions on 2 CDs) which had a whopping 116 tracks, contributed by over a hundred who’s-who in the music, performance arts, and  fashion industry.

The Roll-call:- Musicians: David Byrne, Courtney Love, Michael Stipe, Adam Horowitz (Beastie Boys), Antony & the Johnsons, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth), Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Karl Bartos (Kraftwerk), Andrew WK, Chan Marshall (Cat Power), Danger Mouse, Malcolm McLaren, Ruyuichi Sakamoto; artists: Robert Wilson, Yoko Ono, Christian Marclay, Doug Aitken, Gary Hill, Sylvie Fleury; DJs: Miss Kittin, Trevor Jackson, Towa Tei, Michel Gaubert; fashion designers: Alexander McQueen, Helmut Lang; bands: Littl’Ans, Fischerspooner, Unkle, Animal Collective… and many more.

Listen: Alexander McQueen collab with the Kinks’ John Gosling

Each contributor supplied a 1-minute audio sample, either previously unreleased or reconstructed songs and field-recording samples or spoken word pieces.

The 120-minute of repertoire of sounds range from the utterly banal (Helmut Lang’s recording of duck quacking in Long Island made the minute very strenous to listen to; like watching bulbous paint dry), not to mention pretentious (Yoko Ono’s record of the heartbeat), to the sublimely mundane (Liza Minnelli’s 1-minute field-recording of her walk to Broadway: the sound of her high heels clicking on New York’s street pavement until she opens a door and the sound of an orchestra in rehearsal pours out from the theatre.)

Listen: Liza Minnelli’s the Sound of Broadway

While Kate Moss was nowhere to be found, there is a very annoying 60-second loop of Linda Evangelista reciting her famous mantra “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000“; enough to make you want to slap the woman out of bed.

Listen: Linda Evangelista’s I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day

Listen: Maggie Cheung’s Morning

And there is Maggie Cheung, reprising her non-existant singing talent (last heard in her role for the Cannes award-winning “Clean“) in a one-minute wordless track ‘Morning‘. Thankfully, she only la-la-las through the song in a girlish voice which makes it somewhat bearable.

Yet there are still loads of other highlights including David Byrne’s short and sweet ‘Polaroid Picture’, Miranda July’s wry and quirky one-woman performance piece in which she voices a man, a girl and a woman all in the same breath.

But the best part of the sound mag has to be the cute MINI Clubman “Vinyl Killer” record player: a battery-operated toy car with speakers and a needle. Let the miniature car move along a record’s groove, and it magically plays each track, acting as a fully portable record player and sound system!

At a reduced price of $200 (original price $250) on amazon.com, that’s a Visionaire to get a soundache for.

All music clips above are under the copyrights of Visionaire. The songs included here are for promotional sampling only. If you like it as much as the writer does, please purchase it at www.amazon.com.