There’s no doubt that musicians are an imaginative crowd, always trying to move in new directions (well, some don’t, but generally speaking). One way is introducing unusual instruments and other sound makers, and this seems to have invaded all genres the past few years. To honor this we’ve compiled this list of songs that sport instruments we consider weird or unusual for any of the following reasons: They’re exotic, surprising in context or, well… just plain weird!

Who: Kaizers Orchestra (NO)
What: Oil barrels and car rims
No list on weird instrumentation without Norwegian ompa-punks Kaizers Orchestra. When they surfaced back in the early noughties they raised more than eyebrows with their inspired smashing on oil barrels and car rims with big clubs and crowbars. We men, you womaaan!

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Who: Kira Kira (ISL)
What: A rubber duck
I’ve ever found use of a rubber duck outside the bathtub. A rubber chicken, yes, but a duck, no. Kira Kira is clearly far more imaginative and has included the duck plus an impressive number of everyday and not-so-everyday appliances in her experimental pop (she even plays sugar…).

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Who: ORKA (FO)
What: Everything
Seriously, it is everything. Power tools and homemade instruments, built from scrap material lying around ORKA founder Jens L. Thomsen’s farm on the Faroe Islands and given all-saying names like Hydro Harp, Bottle Organ, Bow & Saw, Axe, and Cement Mixer to name a few. In ‘Volmar’ they’ve even sampled a cow. Says it all, really…

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Who: Wildbirds & Peacedrums (SE)
What: Gu zueng
The Chinese string instrument gu zueng (the bendy, bluesy sound in the background of ‘Who Ho Ho Ho’) is perhaps not that weird considering all the other sound-makers Wildbirds & Peacedrums use, e.g. toy piano, santor and zither, but it is pretty dang exotic.

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Who: Kellermensch (DK)
What: Pump organ
Ah, will there ever be an ALL SCANDINAVIAN Top 10 list without hyping Danish darkmen Kellermensch? Well, possibly. Sometime. But not now. See, apart from everything else that makes them cool, it calls for respect that Kellermensch instead of using keyboards insist on playing an instrument that actually requires manual labour to make music.

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Who: Hjaltalín (ISL)
What: Bassoon
Much can be said about the bassoon, but it’s just not very rock’n’roll. Instead there is a kinda nerdy teen connotation to it. I mean, what youngster voluntarily pick the bassoon when it’s time to choose an instrument? “Uh, I want the guitar!”, “Yeah, drums!”, “Hmmm, think I’ll go for the bassoon…”. Anywho, love the sound of it and Hjaltalín bring it to excellent use in their symphonic indiepop.

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Who: Sort Sol (DK)
What: Mandolin
Okay, so a mandolin isn’t that unusual. It is, however, quite odd that it would be one of Denmark’s first and fines punk bands who’d combine a member of the lute family AND one of the biggest lighter-in-the-air ballads in Danish music history (these days concert venues are mostly illuminated by cell phones – those crap 20 second live clips doesn’t upload themselves to YouTube – but you know what we mean…).

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Who: Katzenjammer (NO)
What: Radiator, steel pipe, beer bottle, wall, floor…
… and whatever else within reach when these Norwegian girls recorded ‘Ain’t No Thang’. In fact Katzenjammer use such a wide variety of more or less exotic (e.g. the bass balalaika) and weird (a trumpet-violin?!) instruments that they’ve made an illustrated list of all on their website.

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Who: Svartsot (DK)
What: Flute
Apart from maybe the harp, a flute is probably the most non-heavy metal instrument in the world, but somehow Danish viking metallers Svartsot manage to implement flute playing with roaring guitars, growling vocals and an attitude so metal, it makes iron seem like baby food (or something). It is, however, still totally impossible to look cool while playing the flute…

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Who: Lykke Li (SE)
What: Toy piano
Elton John, Liberace and Jerry Lee Lewis’ roadies will probably agree that a piano may be a fine instrument, but a bitch to carry around. Swedish indie princess Lykke Li has found a solution in this awesome live clip from Swedish music blog PSL and shows that magic can happen using nothing but a guitar, a tambourine and… a toy piano.