I've never wanted anything more than the 'world's first medieval electronic instruments,' a pre Baroque beatbox that resembles a Pentiment/DJ Hero collaboration

I am one of 15 people who have subscribed to Apple Music rather than Spotify. I'll explain why. I'm a leech off my parents' Apple One membership, which is about 95% of the reasons. Apple's Early Music Playlist, a collection pre-Baroque songs, mainly religious, made up of medieval, Renaissance and medieval-inspired songs.

Does Spotify offer a similar service? I'd rather not know. Please, this is all that will stop me from being sucked into FOMO during Wrapped season.

The medieval music is great, but it's not made anymore since the 1848 revolutions in Europe, when Robespierre and Napoleon changed Europe to electric. But fear not, we can make our own in 21st century. The absolute mad boys at Swedish synth-house Teenage Engineering created "the world's first electronic medieval instrument."

It's called EP-1320, though the blurb refers to it at one point as the INSTRUMENTALIS ELECTRONICUM which is much cooler, and it comes bursting to the brim with "Hurdy gurdys, lutes, Gregorian chants, thundering drums, and punishing foley FX." It comes with a variety of medieval demo songs and instrumental phrases that you can mix and match.

It also looks... period-appropriate? It can do as much as an electronic sampling device. Teenage Engineering even went to the trouble to medievalize the seven-segment screen on the box. This YouTube video from B&H shows it in action, and it sounds incredible. Like a little, portable Peter Pringle.

Teenage Engineering has also produced an advertisement for it. So if you are still not sure what it is, will not help at all. It's like The Colour of Pomegranates with product placement. Just a succession of people dressed in eerie clothing moving through forests and along beaches, performing strange, sacred movements, which occasionally resolve into shots of the EP-1320 being adored like a deity. It doesn't explain anything and I could watch it several hundred more times.

Before I get too excited about this ridiculous machine I'll remind myself and you that it costs $300 (or PS300 if we're using pre-industrial currency). It's not a lot of money, but I don't think I would be willing to pay that much for a joke. If you have a lot of money or a real need for a Renaissance era beatbox then by all means, go ahead and buy one. Let me know how it works.