Fad GadGets

Rhodri Marsden on three of the latest must-have gizmos currently putting the prog in progress…

GLOWING GUITAR

There are some extraordinarily gaudy guitars on this planet, from fluorescent pink Ibanez models to the sparkly gold Flying V. However, these weren’t garish enough for electronics whiz Andrew England, who’s covered his one in a sheet of Plexiglas and used wireless lighting drivers to turn the body into a screen. You may consider our new-found ability to watch moving images on a guitar as either a bold step forward for humanity or a sacrilegious distraction, but maybe, one day, all instruments will look like this. Fireworks on your trombone, madam?

www.bit.ly/glowingguitar

MBAH JENGGOT’S KINETIC ART

An idle YouTube trawl not only brought the Indonesian artist Slamet Wiyono, aka Mbah Jenggot, to my attention, but more specifically a mechanical instrument he started building in 2012 that now weighs half-a-tonne. He’s bolted together car parts, frying pans, typewriters and portable stoves to create something which, he believes, voices his “anxiety about the world”. This magnificent, clanging, twanging machine isn’t for sale. But if you fancy having a go on it, he holds workshops every weekend at his studio just outside Jakarta. See you there!

www.bit.ly/slamet-jenggot

CROSLEY CT100

Few of us mourn the passing of the cassette, but many of us still have boxes full of the damn things, crammed with stuff we taped off the radio, and obscure compilations. To facilitate the exhuming of these relics, Crosley have launched this stereo AM/FM cassette recorder, and it says something about the modern world that something deemed mundane in 1985 is now considered to be retro cool.

www.crosleyradio.com