David Vorhaus is a cult figure for his involvement in White Noise, whose captivating 1969 album of psychedelic musique concrete 'An Electric Storm' was made with BBC Radiophonic Workshop members Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson. But Vorhaus also had a long career making electronic library music and inventing instruments. This clip from the 1979 BBC program The New Sound of Music showcases two of his creations. The MANIAC – it stands for Multiphasic Analog Inter-Active Chromataphonic – is a complex sequencer that allows the composer to rearrange patterns, flip them inside out and upside down, and so forth. More striking looking is the Kaleidophon, a sort of synth-guitar that has ribbons of electrically conductive tape instead of strings. Touch-sensitive and with a subtlety of accent and nuance that the typical keyboard interface for synthesisers in the Seventies couldn’t supply, the Kaleidophon allowed for note-bending and glissandi. But just like the ill-fated Gizmo, the Kaleidophon was too tied to the prog rock criteria of early Seventies musicianship. As it turned out, electronic music’s immediate future would be far less expressive and virtuosic – all about one-finger synth-pop jingles and mechanistic sequencer patterns. The MANIAC was actually more attuned to the coming Eighties sound, its arpeggiated wibbles anticipating acid house and trance. Still, like the Gizmo, the sight of Vorhaus noodling away on his perpendicular Kaleidophon does make you fondly imagine an alternate history scenario for rock: a world where punk never happened (and neither did the Human League and Depeche Mode) and where every band features a lead Kaleidophonist wanking into the wind like nobody’s business.