Fol Chen, a LA band I have seen a couple of times, whose electronic sound is quite difficult to pigeonhole, definitively likes to cultivate mystery. This is indeed a band whose members used to come on stage masked, without revealing their identity, and they have now announced a new instrument, the Tetrafol, as enigmatic as they are.
This is how they describe it:
‘The Tetrafol is a hand-held tangible electronic sound toy. Circuits enclosed by a wooden tetrahedron detect orientation and motion-gestures to modify the playback of a collection of Fol Chen’s micro-compositions, allowing the user to explore sound through physical manipulation.
The battery-powered device has its own internal speaker but can additionally be hooked up to a headphone or amplifier.
The circuit and firmware are based on open-source hardware and is itself published as open-source, allowing anyone interested to learn about its deepest inner-workings.‘
I am not sure it explains what kind of sound it does, that’s why the video below is necessary! What a curious toy and is it just another gimmick ? For me this thing can just produce a series of electronic bleeps, but what do I know?
You can even purchase one on line for the quite expensive sum of $110 +sales tax + $15 shipping here
http://machineproject.com/archive/other/2011/11/07/announcing-the-tetrafol