brianduffyhasabigbrain

The Modified Toy Orchestra does two things very well. Firstly, they take circuit bent instruments and toys and make great live music with them. That’s not easy. Making interesting noises is one thing, using them in tunes in the studio another but creating fully fledged compositions and an immersive live show is something far above and beyond that. Secondly, they do FUN.

Last night’s gig was fantastic, beautifully structured, performed and played. It looked great, the sound was good – if a little genteel volume-wise and the music stunning. I’m never sure what the driving ambition of the MTO is, but if it is popular global acclaim then surely they have the package here to deliver that for them.

Performing ‘Great Kings Fall’ for the first time in the UK, the audience were certainly in for a treat. A robust sound of toy guns, beeps and playtime began to fill the Town Hall, as the live performance enhanced the MTO experience a hundred times better than on CD. Leaving fans entranced and transfixed upon each member’s timing and precision to create such a wonderful, incomparable sound, backed up with projective visual beauty. The space age ‘Earth One’ brought a vibrant story of a green to grey world, as the toys swirl into a darker, more serious twist, surrounding the effects of humanity. With slower, hypnotic, deep drum beats, clanging toy sounds and swooping industrial noises, MTO provided a meaningful Earth-changing realisation behind their usual, quirky and fun-filled exterior, revealing a completely different and unique side to the orchestra. Leader Brian Duffy’s humour and constant interaction with his fans gave a homely and warm feeling inside, a notion which is rarely fulfilled when watching live performances, developing a keen relationship and better understanding behind the music itself.

Modified Toy Orchestra can best be described as the ‘Pre-school Kraftwerk’. The audience at the Town Hall were greeted by five smartly-dressed men in black suits and shirts, in front of a row of keyboards and video screens. The only difference to the German keyboard operatives is the selection of plastic toys that are scattered across the stage. MTO are proponents of ‘circuit bending’; using adapted electronic toys to make weird and wonderful noises into electronic pop music. This gig was the UK première of MTO’s new ‘Plastic Planet’ album. On first hearing, many of the tracks are much more accessible and ‘poppy’ than their first ‘Toygopop’ album, which suffered from being too experimental at times. The only departure this evening is a noisy interlude using two Casio keyboards that had been linked together in, what seemed to be, an homage to ‘The Human Centipede’. The band were clearly surprised and delighted at the reception the new stuff received.