What does the world’s rarest album sound like?

Inside a gently hand-carved silver field on show in an Australian museum lies essentially the most unique, most precious, and maybe most notorious album on the planet.

And this weekend, I grew to become one of many fortunate few on the planet to have heard it.

Recorded in secret over six years by trailblazing hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, As soon as Upon a Time in Shaolin was designed to be a chunk of high-quality artwork.

Solely a single CD copy exists – and with it comes a authorized stipulation that the proprietor can’t publicly launch the 31 tracks till 2103.

The document, which options the 9 surviving members of the group, is at the moment on mortgage to Tasmania’s Museum of Outdated and New Artwork (Mona) – a gallery so well-known for its headline-catching artwork some dub it Australia’s “Temple of Weird”.

First conceived through the pandemic, the museum’s new Namedropping exhibition explores why people chase issues that sign standing and notoriety.

On the high of lead curator Jarrad Rawlins’ want checklist for the exhibition was this album.

“If I’m completely honest it started as a fantasy… we were in a meeting and I just said, ‘We should get that Wu-Tang CD’, and everyone went ‘Yeah. Lol’,” he says.

After years of negotiation, followers from all around the globe have now flocked to Mona to listen to a 36-minute pattern of the album, curated particularly by Wu-Tang Clan producer Cilvaringz.

What can the few dozen individuals who scored tickets to the uber-exclusive listening events anticipate? Mr Rawlins teases a Cher cameo – his favorite bit – however in any other case is tight-lipped.

“The more we know about this album, and the more people out there know, the less magical it becomes,” he insists.

“I think the fans are as excited about not being able to hear it… as they are about being able to hear it.”

However considerably paradoxically, the week that Namedropping opens, information breaks that the corporate loaning the album is suing its earlier proprietor – disgraced “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli – for allegedly making digital copies.

He was compelled handy over the album to US prosecutors in 2018 – three years after buying it – after being convicted of defrauding traders.

It was purchased by digital artwork collective Pleasr for a rumoured $4m (A$6m; £3.2), worth they’re attempting to protect by making Shkreli destroy his bootleg information.

Since 2015, followers have heard snippets of the mysterious music – from potential consumers handled to a 13-minute phase when it was first launched, to the handful of occasions Shkreli streamed scraps on YouTube, and now a five-minute clip which the general public can purchase for a single greenback.

However by no means this a lot of it.

As I queue up for my listening session, a contract demanding that I don’t document it’s thrust into my arms.

“Your obligations under this agreement start on your entry to Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and continue for the remainder of your life or until 2103, whichever occurs first,” it reads.

And once we attain Mona’s Frying Pan Studio itself, I realise the jokes I’ve been listening to about metallic detectors should not jokes in any respect.

One after the other, we’re requested to take off our coats, ditch our baggage, and empty our pockets, earlier than we’re diligently scanned.

Strolling into the dimly lit, wood-panelled room the air feels charged – however that might be the storm sounds enjoying over the audio system.

“Green tea on the left,” a workers member tells me.

In the course of the room, below a highlight, is a PlayStation One sitting atop a spherical yellow desk.

Weaving between pleather bean baggage – additionally yellow – to plonk himself within the entrance row is a person sporting merch from a Wu-Tang twenty fifth anniversary live performance on the Sydney Opera Home six years in the past. He’s along with his accomplice, who I later catch mid bean-bag-boogie. I make a psychological observe to search out them later.

As I take my seat in a black wiry chair, I clock a number of safety guards.

A gong rings, after which silence, as a person with gloved arms walks to the entrance of the room. Swinging his arm in an exaggerated arch, he presses a button on the PlayStation, after which slips the CD inside. In equally dramatic measure, he picks up the controller and hits play.

A member of the group – I’ve not studied onerous sufficient to work out which – tells us to “sit back, relax… and listen”.

“The saga continues,” he says, as they launch into the primary track.

It has oddly soothing choir-like backing vocals, however because the minutes tick by, they provide technique to considerably much less soothing seagulls and sirens. I hear the staccato of precise gunshots alongside synth piano, strings that may be at residence in a dramatic James Bond rating and a riff by some brass instrument which I’ll spend days attempting to get out of my head.

Fashioned in Staten Island within the early 90s, Wu-Tang Clan is known for a singular flavour of hip-hop which revolutionised the style – however they’re additionally recognized for his or her violent and sexually express lyrics.

This document isn’t any totally different.

Contained in the leather-bound lyric ebook that accompanies the bodily album you’d discover loads of references to intercourse and marijuana, and the traditional Wu-Tang themes of cash and toil, youth and crime are ever-present.

And on the subject of namedropping, everybody from Tommy Hilfiger and Tina Turner to Rapunzel and Harry Potter will get a shout out.

Behind the glass on the management deck, technicians are mixing the music reside – adjusting the degrees for every track’s attributes. One man seems over their shoulders approvingly, bobbing his head like a rhythmically gifted hen.

Right here on my facet of the divide, some folks reverently sit with their eyes closed whereas others stare on the ceiling. Many faucet fingers on their cups of chilly tea.

Abruptly, the gloved man is again. He once more walks to the entrance of the room in silence. Eradicating the CD, he slips it right into a nondescript plastic case and walks to a secure, flanked by safety guards.

When the album is safely locked inside, there’s a smattering of applause, and everybody information out of the room.

Initially, I’m overwhelmed. I don’t suppose I’ve ever heard so many phrases in my life. I really feel like I’ve been assaulted by a dictionary.

I’ve simply as many questions strolling out of the studio as I had getting in – possibly extra. Was {that a} flute? In a rap track? What precisely was the message of the lyrics? Who was singing what?

And most significantly, the place was the Cher cameo I used to be promised?! Was the curator messing with me?

I ask among the journalists I’m with in the event that they heard her. All of us look confused. “Maybe she was on keys?” I say.

I single out Wu-Tang Merch man, whose actual identify is Al Maguire. However should you suppose he’s buzzing now, you must have seen him within the moments earlier than the “funky tunes” rang out.

“[I felt] like I needed to pee.

“The first three minutes I was just trying not to cry.”

He’s already unhappy he gained’t hear it once more, he says.

Superfan Jenna Willson is equally emotional once I catch her, decked out actually head to toe in Wu-Tang tributes.

She gallantly takes off her jacket in single digit climate to indicate me a tattoo on the again of her neck, a t-shirt from the Opera Home present that apparently everybody right here however me attended, after which the pièce de resistance – Wu-Tang Clan crocs which she wore to her wedding ceremony.

“I don’t know how everybody was just sitting down, nodding their heads. I was about to lose it. It was so good… Classic Wu-Tang.”

One other man I cease isn’t feeling chatty. He admits to feeling somewhat like an imposter – one thing I discover relatable. He says he’s not even actually a Wu-Tang fan.

Lateisha Canning, although, will fortunately admit why she’s right here.

“You could say bragging rights,” the 21-year-old tells me as she traces up along with her accomplice.

“I don’t know anything about them.”

By the point I see them on the way in which out, Wu-Tang has two new followers.

But when anybody is certified to supply a evaluation, it’s self-described “international heartthrob and agitator” – higher generally known as Australian rap heavyweight, Briggs.

His verdict? “It’s a very cinematic record. The production was cool. Great verses.”

He explains Wu-Tang Clan was an enormous a part of his childhood and their affect wove its means into his artistry – he looks like he’s been a part of hip-hop historical past simply by listening.

Requested what he thinks ought to occur to the album now, he laughs. “I don’t care what happens now, I’ve heard it. You can do whatever you want.”

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