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Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
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Modified Toy Orchestra — Plastic Planet
(Warm Circuit WARM0013, 2011, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2013-04-01

Plastic Planet Cover art This six-piece plays no conventional instruments of any kind, unless you count the Kawasaki Tiger guitar, Golden Touch book strips, Lego Bear Head, Texas Instruments' Speak & Spell, Hula Barbie, Happy Farm Chorus, varous Casio toy keyboards and about two dozen other repurposed toys as conventional instrumentation. Nonetheless, these guys make some pretty mindblowing music, which tends to fall into the avant-garde pop category. As might be expected, the ten songs here have a very electronic and somewhat mechanical feel, cold and void of soul, yet still tend to be very catchy and melodic; one
might be momentarily reminded of late 1970s pioneers like Gary Numan, Devo, and Kraftwerk, but MTO's production values are certainly more contemporary. It's just amazing that music of this caliber can be made using only toys. I woud be remiss not to mention that the deluxe version of the CD comes packaged in a 12 page indestructible hard-cardboard children's style book, with full color illustrations that brilliantly accompany each song. A quick visit to the band's site provides ample evidence that they can pull this off live, too. If you like being sidetracked into an alternate musical universe of heavy sequenced rhythms, cheesy keyboard sounds and dweedly sound effects, MTO may be your ticket.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 40, 2011 releases

Related artist(s): Modified Toy Orchestra

More info
http://www.modifiedtoyorchestra.com

 

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