FAD GADGETS

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

COLOURED PENCIL GUITAR

Furious arguments play out on internet forums over the optimum material you should use to make the body of a guitar. The gentle warmth of rosewood? The elegant sustain of maple? The brightness of poplar? The artist known simply as Burls has no time for that kind of blather; he spent nearly £400 on 1,200 coloured pencils, used epoxy resin to stick them together into a lump, cut that into the shape of a Fender Stratocaster and made a guitar that doesn’t just work — it sounds and looks quite fabulous.

www.bit.ly/pencilguitar

KEYTAM

“Acoustic, melodic, nomadic” is the billing given to the Keytam by its creator, Guillaume Toutain. It’s a percussion instrument, held like a guitar, that incorporates an African talking drum, snare and tambourine. Together they can emulate a full drum kit, but with oodles more flexibility of tone. The videos of it being played by pros are astounding, and at the time of writing they’re helping it speed towards its Kickstarter target. I’m not sure it’s “the only percussion instrument you will need”, as the blurb claims, but I wouldn’t mind getting one for Christmas.

www.keytam-drum.com

X-RAY RECORDS

In the repressive regimes of Soviet-era Russia when Western pop music was banned, music fans sought bootleg records by The Beatles and The Stones that had been discreetly pressed onto old X-rays. This idea of bone music has been revitalised by a charity called The University Of The Underground, who have pressed audio recordings by Pussy Riot, Noam Chomsky, Sigur Rós and others into X-ray format. Warning: should you manage to get your hands on one, you can only play it around a dozen times before the audio wears out. Better to hang it on the wall.

www.universityoftheunderground.org