This stunning display of “art meets food” was created as a commercial for Schwartz Flavour Shots, a pre-packaged soup and meal company out of the United Kingdom, who boasts “Flavour Shots—the little pots with big flavour.” This slow-motion video dubbed “The Sound of Taste” is a stunning arrangement of cinematography and pyrotechnics that creates what filmmaker Chris Cairns calls “an audiovisual feast.” To this day, when I see spices overflowing in canvas bags, this video always makes its way into the forefront of my mind. Breathtakingly tasty!

To create this ‘feast,’ Cairns was joined by musician MJ Cole and pyrotechnician Paul Mann. Together, the launching of this brainchild was deciding how to best put together a half-visual, half-auditory symphony that would entirely capture what it is like to truly experience “taste.”

What they settled on was a commercial that would show billows of spices exploding into the air in slow-motion, flawlessly synchronized to the music Cole had written.

“What does flavour look like? How does it sound? These are the questions that inspired herb and spice experts, Schwartz, to create what they describe as a ‘Sonic Flavourscape’.

Several tons of black peppercorns, cardamom, turmeric, paprika, cumin seeds, ginger, chilli and coriander were rigged to explode in perfect sync with a bespoke musical composition. Each explosion represents an individual piano note or chord, which when filmed at high-speed, creates a surreal three-dimensional sound scape.

It’s been said “if ever a video deserved the title ‘mesmerizing,’ Adam Magyar’s Stainless videos are it.”

At the end of the BTS video, musician MJ Cole is heard saying, “I hope people just find it a satisfying, vibrant, colorful, exciting thing to watch.” If we’re anything to judge by, Mr. Cole’s wish came true with (pun forthcoming) flying colors.