It is not a really new phenomena, but I hadn't heard about it before: A creative audio activity called circuit bending. Basically it is to take a toy or other low-power electrical audio device, and alter/shortcut the electrical circuit to make it say different sounds. By inserting on/off switches or volume controls, an combining many different souces, the sounds can sum up to musical pieces.

I heard about in the Danish radio show Harddisken recently but according to Wikipedia it started way back in the sixties with the first transistor amplifiers and later on synthesizers. You can here examples at oddmusic.com and circuitbenders.co.uk