Thanks to Howard and Christian ofPartyshank, I finally have a term to use when describing the glitchy bleep-bloop technoise used in their music... but what on earth is 'circuit bending'?NIN,Aphex Twin,Autechre,Portishead,Venetian Snares,ec8or, and exemplified byPartyshank... circuit bending is behind the some of the best 'tech' noise in my collection. So what is it?

Circuit Bendingis the art of producing music through the 'bent' - or unintended - usage of electronic circuits, usually involving weirdly modified childhood toys. MySpeak & Readalways seemed like a great candidate for sampling, but circuit bending goes beyond recording mere audio samples. Electro-tech artists actually crack open the toy's outer casing, hardwiring into the circuitry inside to create sounds. The result is some remarkably clear, although often experimentally derived, musical tweaking via the short-circuiting of the device.

Christian of the circuit bending duoPartyshankwas kind enough to answer a few questions, explaining where some of their sounds come from. "We have never made a certain "type" of music, but everything would fall under electronic music as a whole. I used to produce drum and bass as a kid and then started making electro a few years ago. Howard had circuit bent the toys and together we decided to use the 2 combined."

The guys fromPartyshankdon't just borrow from their toys, but use them to create the majority of sounds in some songs. The trackGaryis based on the modification of theGary Toy; another of Howard's favourites is theSuper Concert Toythough it's rarely used in live sets. Though this technique seems too elite to have a mass following, there are a number ofresourcesavailable online for anyone interested in starting their own projects. You can even purchase pre-bent toys oneBay!

Christian tells me, "There is loads on the internet on circuit bending, or if you drop us a message onmyspacewe are more than happy to help out with information. Whenever we have time we reply and try help anyone out with sequencing and what equipment to get." Thanks toPartyshankwho were voted one of the 'top ten' favourites of myspace and cranked it atThe Social last week... though they claim they have had a few gigs that were less receptive to their sound, Toronto gets it.

My thanks also toDJ 0=0and Producer Dave Moag for helping introduce me to local circuit bending. These Toronto producers' favourite toys? For DnB DJ 0=0, theSpeak & Spell, andCasio sk-1 / sk-5are some of the most popular pieces of equipment to work with. Dave Moag has a project of his own, anAlesis hr16bdrum machine. "It has tons of sounds and a removable patch bay so I could bend other pieces of gear with 36-pin printer ports, but still use the same bay. This allows me to create bridges between all the pins on the chip." It's amazing how much of the music I love is being made this way.

Photos courtesy ofMatrixsynth(fickr) and8hands.