I wanted to start this thread to discuss various examples of musicians that play within the boundaries of a certain style, but do so with unconventional instrumentation. Examples could be Uz Jsme Doma's prominant saxophone, Ruins' bass/drum only rock attack, Van Der Graaf generator's keyboard-centric rock, Aloha's Vibes, etc...

...my examples were pretty Rock-centric as that's whats coming off the top of my head, but I know that there are plenty of examples of unconventional instrumentation throughout all styles of music. And personally, I think that when artists do attempt this sort of thing, the results can be truly remarkable.

So, what artists do you enjoy that employ odd/unconventional instrumentation in their music?

this guy Matt Schultz build his own anti-tank guitar and it looks very huge. his band is called Lab Report. they do dark ambient and stuff.

http://www.labreport.com/

another one I can recall right now is Lovesliescrushing. the band has one guy and another girl. and the guitar noises he made are awesome. very unusual use of a conventional guitar.

http://www.projekt.com/bands/loveslies.html

by the way, I should mention about alien devices. bent electronic instruments.

http://www.alien-devices.com/

www.anti-theory.com
reed ghazala is the man!

"Futureman" from Bela Fleck and the Flectones uses a modified guitar that includes a keyboard that streams midi channels to make thousands of different noises. It's pretty weird. I don't really even like the flectones, I'm just taking an Electronic Music course and we learned about it.

Yeah, futureman's great -- and I rather like the Flecktones myself.

I heard somewhere that sigur ros use violin bows on guitars, thats pretty wierd ... not sure how original that is though!

BTW does anyone know anything about E-bows? I've been looking for one recently but can't seem to find any.

I thought e-bow was pretty easy to find. have you looked on the internet? my friend used to have one and it costed him about 100 US dollar, that was about 10 years ago.

Einsturzende Neubauten used a metal vibrator on a guitar in a song, that was cool!

Unfortunately I can't find one anywhere, maybe I'll try the vibrator instead!

sammo, check this link out!

http://www.ebow.com/ebow/distributors.htm

the site does have distributor in the UK, you should call them up.

if not, your vibrator would give your audience a memorable performance! and you should get the biggest one you can afford too!

or check those out:

golden color, 7 inches long
http://www.taboo.co.uk/modules/shop/...dcode=SV004-03

I think this is the one einstruzende neubauten used
http://www.taboo.co.uk/modules/shop/...dcode=SV002-01

this is the same as the above with a different head and thinner handle
http://www.taboo.co.uk/modules/shop/...Prodcode=SV009

this one is 9 inches long with a clitoral stimulator
http://www.taboo.co.uk/modules/shop/...Prodcode=XS001