Technology may be replacing the physical with digital wherever it seems appropriate but in recent years it seems music lovers have been hankering after the return of a tangible product. Recently we have seen Benjamin Wynn release his album The Observe Box in the form of an artefact, and Trevor Jackson has just released his first album in fourteen years celebrating the evolution of the analog form with his Format project.

At the same time, vinyl records have been steadily replacing the plastic jewel case CD, with their larger sleeves giving album artwork a renewed significance.

DJ QBert has teamed up with Cambridge start up Novalia to embrace vinyl artwork's new popularity, by creating the world's first interactive album packaging. Novalia work with conductive inks, creating interactive posters and they have repeated this principle for the vinyl artwork of Qbert's latest album Extraterrestria. The ink on various parts of the slip cover is connected to a sound system via circuits that are interrupted when touched, this allows the user to overlay loops and beats to create their own songs before getting to Qbert's music itself.