The Tenori-on is almost 15 years old, but it still looks like an instrument from the future. It was an early progenitor of the grid-based instruments that blanket the music-making world these days. Here it is heard sequencing sedate exotica beats, as filtered by an offshoot of another matrix instrument. That’s a Norns Shield on the left, a little music computer from the makers of the Monome Grid. The video is from a musician who goes by Sudden Language.
The Tenori-on was developed by Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori. Video originally posted at YouTube. More from Sudden Language at suddenlanguage.bandcamp.com.