Tempophone home

The tempophone is a device that varies pitch or tempo but not at the same time.  It involves multiple playback heads mounted on a rotating cylinder.  (All descriptions come from Handbook on Acoustic Ecology).  The machine, essentially, was to create new sounds that are "normally impossible."  The "time stretching" of the tempophone is similar to digital techniques like granulation.  

What I find interesting about this are two things- one much of what we think is new is just a variation on a theme.  And two, what comes before shapes what comes after and how it is used.