What do you think when you hear the word “music box”? Chances are, you imagine a very traditional wooden box, with beautiful marquetry – and when you open the lid, a ballerina starts to revolve inside while the mechanism plays Mozart or Bach.

The MusicMachine is on a mission: to change that perception! With its dual propellers and twin silver cylinders mounted on sleek outrigger landing gear, MusicMachine looks like a spaceship hailing from a galaxy far, far away.

Conceived and designed by the MB&F team, this unconventional machine was brought into earthly existence by Reuge, the only remaining high-end manufacturer of music boxes on the planet. Interestingly, there are many historical links between the music box and watch industries: Reuge has supplied musical complications for timepieces since their very origin back in 1865, many of the techniques involved in the manufacturing process are similar, geographically the village of Sainte-Croix is part of the watchmaking region…

MusicMachine’s twin cylinders each play three melodies. On the left, there is a sci-fi vibe with themes from ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Star Trek’. On the right you get rock classics from Maximilian Büsser’s teenage years with Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

Hats off to Reuge, who broke with a few music box conventions to remain faithful to the brand’s original concept. For a start, they created two independent movements configured as mirror images of one another, meaning the component design and architecture had to be completely inverted. They configured MusicMachine’s two 72-note combs vertically, instead of horizontally, to look like air vent grills on either side of the vessel’s main body. These combs are plucked by pins on the horizontal cylinders powered by twin mainspring barrels resembling pistons under the winding propellers. Outside of these propellers are the circular-fan shaped air regulators controlling the speed at which the cylinders revolve.

MusicMachine is in a limited edition of 33 pieces in white and, for those tempted by ’the dark side’, 33 pieces in black.

Read more about MB&F’s MusicMachine in Malcolm Lakin’s BaselWorld Report HERE

Source: MB&F

Video: MB&F Channel on Vimeo - Filmed by TheWatchesTV