Kevin Parker’s Orchid Chord Generator Goes Clear

A year after Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker quietly upended the idea of what a songwriting tool could look like, his hardware company is leaning all the way into the mythmaking.

On May 11, Telepathic Instruments will release Clear Orchid: Arctic, a fully transparent, limited-edition version of its buzzy Orchid chord generator, capped at 3,000 units worldwide. The drop also brings back the original Orchid colorway, plus its now-signature orange case, and marks the full rollout of Pistil, a companion plugin that ports Orchid’s sound engine into DAWs on Mac and Windows.

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Arriving today (May 5), a short film titled TeleVision reframes Orchid as both a tool and a kind of cultural object. It introduces Darlene LeClair, a fictional “musical medium” who doles out inspiration via what looks like a warped public-access psychic hotline. Narrated by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and featuring cameo “testimonials” from the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Janelle Monáe and (checks notes…) Fred Durst, it gleefully skewers the modern creativity economy.

The 12-note keyboard is aimed at helping users easily generate chords as a means to aid the compositional and creative processes and was “originally conceived as a tool for Parker’s own songwriting” more than a decade ago. It contains a patent-pending chord voicing engine, three separate synthesizer emulators (a polyphonic virtual analog subtractive synth, an FM synth and a vintage reed piano emulation inspired by a famous 1960s electric piano), a MIDI out port, built-in speakers and a rechargeable battery, while modes such as Strum, Slop, Arpeggiator, Pattern and Harp allow for adding numerous human touches.

The Pistil plugin bundles Orchid’s synth emulators into a format that can live inside any digital audio workstation and launches with 10 new sounds and discounted pricing for existing hardware owners.

In just over a year, Orchid has sold roughly 12,000 units across 60 countries and landed on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025 list. It’s also made its way into high-profile recording environments like London’s Abbey Road Studios, while popping up in projects from Kid Cudi, Diplo and Gracie Abrams.

Following a recent installation at Flower Shop in Paris, Telepathic is bringing the concept to London so users can demo the device, hear works-in-progress and watch live performances up close. Clear Orchid: Arctic and the standard Orchid will be available exclusively via Telepathic’s website, with waitlist access opening May 11 ahead of a wider public release.

Meanwhile, Tame Impala is winding down a spring European tour this month before kicking off a huge North American run July 6-7 in Miami.

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