Last time I was in Tokyo I lucked in & went to an exhibition of some of the ingenious musical devices produced by Maywa Denki.
While I was certainly aware of them before, having seen their little music generating toys (like those above) for sale online at places like sweaty frog this was my first time experiencing their larger scale machines & it was a lot like being a kid in a candy store! Heres some backstory from the sake-drenched postcards site and a video with a few examples:
And members of the knockman family:
sugoi!
