Toydeath

Toydeath is actually the name of a band rather than an experimental instrument. But Toydeath play more experimental instruments and gadgets than anyone else!

Shakira and Barbie Doll, the blazing Kawazaki Twin-necked guitar, speak’n'spell machines, dinky megaphones, lurid pressure-sensitive floor mats, and the sax-a-boom are but a small sample of the electronic toys and gadgets that Toydeath’s Nick Wishart has set his soldering iron to.

Beyond the smell of fusing electronics, Nick Wishart has, over the last ten years, managed to build a cult following for his band Toydeath. Appearing on stage dressed as gaudy, nightmarish plastic dolls and action figurines, and armed with a myriad of dinky toy instruments, Toydeath have been described as a ‘hyperband of aliens’ producing ‘horror pop’ or ‘bad taste kraftwerk high on a dripfeed of bad childrens’ tv’. I like to think that Toydeath deliver us a vision of an alternative universe Fisher-Price guerrilla house band.

Outside of Toydeath, Wishart shares his skills with willing students through regular circuit-bending workshops and other public projects that enable people to build and play circuit-bent musical instruments.

clatterbox will be producing a more in-depth piece on Toydeath in the near future.

Toydeath site
Official Unofficial site

clatterbox’s little music video filmed at Toydeath’s launch of their album Guns, Cars, and Guitars at the Broadway Intencity, Sydney 11 April 2005.