The Swedish decoration giants Ikea talked about making turntables a few years ago, but it never worked out – they have speakers, though – but it’s now happening, thanks to a collaboration, obviously, with Swedish house mafia. The turntable is part of the OBEGRÄNSAD collection made with EDM stars which should be launched this fall.

“Before we met Swedish House Mafia, we decided not to get into electronics too much, because of the challenges they pose,” says Carmen Stoicescu, engineer at IKEA. “But then one of the guys in the band started talking about making a record player, and all of a sudden I forgot everything we had discussed… When the question came to me, I I just said, ‘Actually, we already tried to make a record player, so maybe we could use the same supplier?’

IKEA designer Friso Wiersma says SHM’s Axwell told him, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could buy a record player as a present for a friend?”, and it became sort of a brief. To make something so simple, so accessible, and kind of plug-and-play that you could buy it as a gift for anyone who loves music.”

The OBEGRÄNSAD turntable is striking and very IKEA, a blocky black square with a top engraved into it. The front has two switches: On/Off and 33/45. “Today you see a lot of thin turntables that almost try to hide themselves, but we wanted something very bold, and we wanted the turntable to be a very physical manifestation of music,” Friso explains. “Everything with Swedish House Mafia is a very conscious statement. I really like this approach. Music is also a big part of my life. I would like to highlight this in my interior as well”.

“In the previous project, we tried to give all the pieces a specific design, but with OBEGRÄNSAD we tried to limit the moulds”, explains Stoicescu. “We wanted to make it simple, mechanical – so we looked for what sounds best, and we put all our eggs in that basket.

The turntable is USB powered and features an Audio Technica cartridge, as well as analog outputs and Bluetooth capability. No word yet on pricing. As for the rest of the Swedish House Mafia OBEGRÄNSAD collection, it includes “more than 20 pieces of furniture, interior solutions and accessories for music producers, DJs and up-and-coming designers with limited means but unlimited creativity”. Among these items: “The Music Desk” designed for music production and “The Listening Chair”. Check out photos of those below.