This new record from the guys at Japan’s Kyouei Design was actually intended for continuous play. The Endless Rain Record is designed with a special spiral grooves that keeps the sounds playing in a perfect loop. Side one of the disc features a 10 minute long loop of rain, while the flip-side has a series of five loopable “drop” sounds.

The designboom shop sells the Endless Rain Record for $39 (USD). Fill up a room with 3 or 4 turntables, and you’ll have a virtual rainforest. I suppose if I ran a spa or a funky urban boutique hotel, it might be cool to have a bunch of these records playing at once. Sure, there are plenty of  iPhone apps that generate white noise and nature sounds – but they don’t look as cool doing it.

Put the needle on the record… put the needle on the record… put the needle on the record…

Designed by Kouichi Okamoto with ceramicist Daniel Jo, the Water Clock consists of a small fired clay base topped with a pair of magnetic spheres. A pair of powerful magnets underneath the delicate clay surface move the tiny orbs in a circular path to tell the current time. While the spheres are magnetic, they’re actually buoyant, so if you fill up a glass with H2O, the “hands” of the clock actually float on the surface of the water. Each of the spheres can be placed into any dish, plate or other vessel you happen to have lying around.

And while all the designer’s pictures show the clock working with crystal clear water and delicate china, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t make your own clock using beer, wine, orange juice or Donkey Kong Jungle Juice swimming in a Dixie Riddle Cup. That’s the true beauty of this thing.

The Water Clock is available over at Generate for $299 (USD).