Negură Bunget - Vîrstele Pamîntului - Earthbox

At last the Negură Bunget's Earthbox is in my hands. This Earthbox was due in March 2010.Well there's been some delay, to say the least. Here's the story.

In beginning of 2010, the Romanian band Negură Bunget issued its album "Vîrstele Pamîntului" with manufacturer Code666. One could order a handmade Wooden Box limited to 555 copies. So I did. The box could be ordered from the band or from Aural Music. I ordered it from Aural Music.

The box is a handmade woodbox (27 x 16 x 4 cm), burn-in finishing, roped, filled with Transilvanian's earth (to match the concept of the album titled "The Age of Land/Earth"). The box includes the deluxe 8 panels digipack-cd of the album, an exclusive 60x90 poster, an exclusive 12x12 album sticker and an exclusive Negura Bunget 2,5cm metal pin. 100% handmade. Each copy is unique and different.
It appears quite soon that some delay was needed for the band to handle the case. Aural Music made a first statement in March 2010. They said the posters, stickers, pins and digipacks were ready, the wood boxes were ready, the earth was ready. All they missed was the external engravings (in charge of the band) so as to assemble the whole box. Aural decided to send part of the material immediatly and to send the boxes (and soil) soon after.
I received the material as promised and then waited for the wood box. Then Spring 2010 was gone, so was Summer, Winter was here and finally in January 2011 Aural gave some news, explaining that the band could not find a technical way to engrave the front of the box within the agreed budget.

Aural told they offered to do the engraving themselves in Italy at their expenses and were waiting for the rough boxes from the band. Negru, on behalf of Negura Bunget, then explained that the band asks for some additionnal money so as to make the execution by themselves. Well, what I can understand in that, since February 2010, the questions seem to resume in : what is the extra cost, for what quality, who pays for it, who does the extra work? These questions remained unsolved for a few more months.

In April 2011 it appears that the band had managed to finish some of the boxes as I could see some of them before my eyes at a show in Paris. I was told at this show that it was only a matter of one month to get my copy from Aural/Code666.

Emi and Fausto from Aural met Negru from Negura Bunget on April 15th. To do so they rent a van and drive all the way to Timisoara in Romania. 14 hours to go and the same to come back. They recovered a lot of rough boxes, partial boxes and spare parts. Then they had to fix how to engrave, assemble and ship all the boxes.


Finally they manage to make a first shipment of 50 boxes in beginning of July 2011. That means 16 months after the first orders. I still had to wait for mine until November 2011. As promised by Aural, I received the wood box (empty as I already received the box’s inner stuff in 2010), some Transilvanian soil, a free cd, plus a 30% discount voucher for a future order on the AuralWebstore. Nice from you guys. I mean it.

Well the box was worth the wait. As one can see, it's a quality box.
Hope you enjoyed this long story about this box. I don't care about the waiting and I don't give a fuck about the difficulties between Aural and Negura Bunget while making this box. I mean this is an handmade product, especially designed by the band and made by them, even if they are musicians and not carpenters. They had to put their heart in it and Aural had to put their trust in this unusual project.
Well thanks to you Negura Bunget and Aural, it was fun to wait for this different experience.
 






One song from the album :
Negură Bunget - Vîrstele Pamîntului - Earthbox Negură Bunget - Vîrstele Pamîntului - Earthbox Reviewed by Concerts expos by Pat on novembre 24, 2011 Rating: 5

1 commentaire

DiamondsAndRust a dit…

Wow, is all I can say. Just wow. And I wish I had one.