Running the biggest art sales and blog site in the world, we get sent A LOT of content from artists all around the globe who ask us to share their work to our millions of followers.  Sometimes, something truly amazing drops into our inbox which simply stops us in our tracks.  This is one such item – a Smooth Criminal playing barrel organ!

According to Wikipedia, a barrel organ (or roller organ) is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. The pieces of music are encoded onto wooden barrels (or cylinders), which are analogous to the keyboard of the traditional pipe organ.

Anyways, this particular barrel organ is from ODIN, with the Smooth Criminal arrangement coming from Patrick Mathis. You can see more barrel playing on their Facebook page or on YouTube.

If this isn’t the most amazing thing you see all week, we’ll eat our hat! Why is he playing in a wood pile? Your guess is as good as ours!