Japanese robot band Z Machines gives new meaning to electronica

Stuff like this can happen only in Japan. A bunch of people from the Tokyo University have gone and created a robot band in the hopes of advancing

Ramkumar Iyer|Jun 28, 2013, 13:47:09 IST

Stuff like this can happen only in Japan. A bunch of people from the Tokyo University have created a robot band in the hopes of advancing Japan’s cutting-edge party scene. Called Z Machines, the band comprises three robots that play a guitar, a huge drum kit and a keyboard, and together churn out some music that somehow manages to sound better than most of Nicki Minaj’s discography.

Check out this video of Japanese artist DJ Baku jamming with the robot band:

Although this is not the first robot band we’ve seen—Compressorhead was the first real "metal" band—the members of Z Machines boast of some crazy tech. The guitarist robot, Mech, has 78 fingers and wields 12 picks to shred its way to glory on the double-fret Steinberger guitar attached to its body. It can also do some robotic singing through a speaker on its face (which is again better than Nicki Minaj’s voice) and has a (LCD?) display, where its forehead should be, to display messages like “CPU” and “THANK YOU”. Mech can headbang too, but only a little.

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The robot on keyboard, called Cosmo, looks like some Mayan God/alien that decided to go for a steampunk makeover. The videos don’t show much of its musical prowess, but it can shoot lasers out of its eyes. Yeah, why not. caption

They sure look better than Metallica

The drummer robot is where things get ridiculous: It’s called Ashura, has 21 arms and plays a huge drum kit. Its head moves around quite comically and looks funny, but if you listen closely, you’ll notice it plays fast, complex rhythms that Lars Ulrich can only dream of (braces self for hate mail from Metallica fans).

The Z Machines were created for Zima, a Japanese alcohol brand, and played their debut gig in Tokyo earlier this week. They were later joined on stage by human girl group AMOYAMO. The band’s creators hope to one day see Z Machines performing in space.

By Ramkumar Iyer

Behind his cold and drowsy exterior is the still cold but slightly less sleepy Ram. He's essentially paid to be our own personal grammar nazi. He tends to take his job a little too seriously, so you may sometimes see him running around punching his colleagues in the arm for typos and grammar mistakes. Some of his favorite topics to find mistakes in are games and open source stuff like Linux, but he also maintains a fleeting interest in smartphones. He also loves Michael Jackson's Heal the World the same way a little girl loves cockroaches.