Composer-inventors like Bertoia and Partch were interested in creating sounds accessible only to themselves, in order to expand their compositional range and differentiate themselves from the avant competition. But there’s a whole separate tradition of musical inventors who aimed to launch their products on the mass market, dreaming that their instruments might become permanent fixtures in the arsenal of the modern musician, just as earlier inventions such as the saxophone had done. The half of 10cc most interested in studio effects and production wizardry, Kevin Godley and Lol Crème broke away from the group at the height of their mid-Seventies success in order to develop a contraption called The Gizmo, or Gizmotron, which they fondly believed would revolutionize rock. Enlisting help from Manchester University’s Institute of Science and Technology, Godley & Creme created a device that could be strapped onto an electric guitar and – through the high-speed rotation of 48 mini-plectrums striking each string – generate wavering tones that resembled orchestral strings, brass sections, and other non-rock instruments. In this TV news report from September 1977, Crème enthuses about the Gizmo’s mimetic capacities and its ability to create virtually endless sustain. The Gizmo became the core sound of the duo’s debut 'Consequences', a conceptual triple album about a meteorological catastrophe that took 18 months to complete. Signing up the project around the same time that Mike Oldfield’s quasi-classical instrumental rock albums like 'Tubular Bells' were selling by the multimillion, Mercury Records imagined that 'Consequences' would be a giant step forward in rock’s artistic maturation – and accordingly a massive selling release. The record company actually priced Consequences even higher than a triple LP would normally warrant, to reinforce the idea that it was a prestige purchase for discerning listeners; it came in a box, like a classical music set, with a 20 page booklet and full-colour illustrations. But by the time the triple album reached the shops in late 1977, punk had come along and prog-rock era values were completely obsolesced. Consequences was an utter flop and the Gizmo likewise never became the universal fixture that Godley & Crème imagined. Despite scoring a couple of minor hits later on, the duo’s pop career never really recovered, but a consolation prize came with their super-successful career as innovative video producers.