There’s no denying that Jack White has an obsession with vinyl. His company Third Man Records is essentially built off of that obsession, as White continues to support talented musicians and preserve musical legacies through the creation of vinyl. His Third Man Records booth made history when it became the quickest performing-to-vinyl pressing ever, but it seems White is not content with keeping his vinyl on the ground.
In a new video posted to Jack White’s Facebook page, the musician writes “July 30th, Third Man Records is going to make vinyl history again” in gold letters, set over a background of stars in outer space. From there, a gold vinyl twirls its way into the foreground, revealing its title: Carl Sagan’s “A Glorious Dawn,” an album released on Third Man Records in 2009.
Carl Sagan was a noted astronomer, perhaps best known for his series Cosmos that was popular in the 1980’s, and recently revitalized with Neil deGrasse Tyson as host. Some of his spoken excerpts were selected and released on the “A Glorious Dawn” album posthumously.
When you couple that with some older interviews, it seems highly likely that White is going to boldly go where no man has gone before, and try to play a vinyl record in space for the first time ever. In a 2012 conversation with astronaut Buzz Aldrin in Interview Magazine, White talks about a “secret project” to accomplish this first-ever feat. White says, “We want to launch a balloon that carries a vinyl record player, and possibly that Carl Sagan record, and figure out a way to drop the needle with all that turbulence up there and ensure that it will still play.”
Has White figured it out? I guess we’ll find out on July 30th. Watch the video below.