The Bridgewater Hall - Alive with Music

Modified Toy Orchestra present Plastic Planet

with special guests Micronormous

Modified Toy Orchestra

Tickets: £13.00

  • Brian Duffy
  • Darren Joyce
  • Laurence Hunt
  • Chris Plant
  • Graeme Rose
  • Sean Tighe

Please note that there is limited use of flashing light during this concert. The video clips below also contain some flashing images.

For more video clips, please scroll down the page.

After international performances to critical & audience acclaim, MTO return to the UK to premiere their new album Plastic Planet, performed using only modified toys. With its subtle ecological concerns, cinematic soundscapes and joyous electronic pop music, this will be a truly unique & uplifting experience.

Modified Toy Orchestra rescue electronic toys from car boot sales and convert them into new, strange and wonderfully sophisticated musical instruments. Taking them apart, they find new connections within each toy and explore the latent potential and surplus value inherent in these liberated circuits.

Guided by this hidden world, they seek to make a form of music devoid of personal narrative or autobiography, instead asking bigger questions about our relationship with the next new gadget or our desire for the constant upgrade.

Five years in the making, Plastic Planet continues MTO's philosophy of performing live electronic music without the use of laptops, sythesisers or samplers. No conventional instruments of any kind are used at all – a philosophy which began with their debut album, Toygopop.

On Plastic Planet they develop further concerns: themes of utopian bliss on Funfair for the Common Man; the rise of the information age on Qwerty, the collapse of empire on Great Kings Fall and the consequences of ecological vandalism on Earth One.

Regular conductors Brian Duffy (‘a national treasure’ – mute), Dreams of Tall Buildings Darren Joyce, Pram’s Laurence Hunt & AV artist Chris Plant are joined by new members Graeme Rose & Sean Tighe in this epic UK performance.