Japanese all-robot band has a guitarist with 78 fingers

Last summer, Squarepusher, aka Tom Jenkinson, received a most strange invitation: Would he collaborate with Z-Machines, a robotic band created by a team of young Japanese roboticists? Jenkinson couldn’t possibly say no. Kenjiro Matsuo, Z-Machines’ musical producer, made the decision to invite Jenkinson to to create music specifically for the project. Almost all of the other invitations were sent to Japanese composers

All-robot band Compressorhead has some competition. British record label Warp Records will soon be releasing an album performed entirely by a three-piece band of Japanese robots called Z-Machines — the guitarist has 78 fingers, while the drummer rocks out with 22 arms. The band’s creators teamed up with composer Squarepusher initially to simply explore creating music with the bots, but eventually they crafted an entire five track album. “In this project familiar instruments are used in ways which till now have been impossible,” Squarepusher says.