In every genre from jazz-fusion to hair metal, the keytar – the keyboard-with-a-handle, worn suspended, guitar-like, from a shoulder-strap – once reigned supreme, sported by countless ticklers of plastic ivory, including Herbie Hancock, Devo, Pet Shop Boys, Asia, Steely Dan and Jean Michel Jarre. Since the late 1980s, however, it has been almost entirely absent from our cultural consciousness for all except the citizens of YouTube, who last year sent “Keytarjeff Video 3”, a display of super-speed shredding to rival anything by Steve Vai, to the top-rated music video slot.

YouTube trawlers are almost as keen on You be my Wife, a recent duet between the Croatian keytarist Belinda Bedekovic and, er, the comedy Kazakhstani Borat. That Sacha Baron Cohen chose the keytar for his leotard-clad, culturally wayward creation pretty much sums up the instrument’s irredeemably naff reputation.

It’s something of a surprise, then, to be attending the 1234 Festival in thoroughly hip Shoreditch, East London, and to discover a keytar in the hands of one of the headlining bands. Pete Cafarella, front-man of the New York dance duo Shychild, agrees to talk me through the instrument that is now being used by acts including Chromeo, Mutemath, Goldfrapp, Imogen Heap and Peaches . It also features in the video for the recent Beyoncé single Green Light.

Yes, the keytar is enjoying an unlikely comeback. Few would be surprised to hear Spyro Gyra’s Tom Schuman, owner of the first commercially produced keytar, say that he hasn’t played the instrument since 1989. Yet Jeff Abbott, aka Keytarjeff of YouTube fame, and, as member of Mass Hysteria, the man who quite possibly coined the term “keytar”, says: “I had a chat with Ernie Ride-out, editor of Keyboard magazine, and we both concur that the start of the instrument’s heyday is now.”

That may be, but Roland recently discontinued its AX-7 keytar, and neither keytarists nor keyboard shop staff were able to name a single model that’s still in production.

This revival, then, could be relying heavily on eBay. Numerous models followed the arrival in 1980 of the first commercial keytar, the Moog Liberation. That was inspired by the portable keyboards wielded by Jan Hammer, George Duke and others.

The classics are spoken of in hushed tones: P-Thugg, from the electro-funk duo Chromeo, is in love with the Casio AZ-1, while Cafarella’s all-time favourite is the Roland SH-101.

Gear geekery aside, though, what is the appeal? It’s simple for P-Thugg. “They just look cool,” he laughs. “They give nerdy piano players a cool edge.” Others have more functional reasons. “I have a wireless headset mike as well,” says Heap, “so with a keytar, I can play and sample my voice with my feet and still move around. It means I can go out into the crowd or, as in my Hallowe’en show at the Roundhouse, I can fly in on a broomstick.”

Cafarella agrees that it’s “a utilitarian choice – I move around, I sit on the kickdrum, I spin around.” Having tried out his keytar (or “guiboard”, as Cafarella prefers to call it), I can vouch for another big plus – it’s enormous fun to play.

However, Schuman says that there is a flipside to the freedom of movement: he once fell into an orchestra pit “while haphazardly prancing about”. He also recalls one custom-made keytar with an inbuilt smoke bomb that went wrong and set the instrument alight.

A more general complaint is that almost all keytars are no more than Midi (musical instrument digital interface) controllers that send electronic data, without generating their own sounds. The keyboard length of up to four octaves is also relatively short – half that of the standard piano. Then there is susceptibility to beer-induced temporary shutdown; and battery dependence (“you can plug them in but that’s kind of lame”).

Other problems include the price – unlike in the wilderness years, keytars are not cheap. Plus, you can only really play the instrument with one hand, unless you’re Cafarella, whose low-slung action allows him to play bass and lead, as well as singing.

So what will be the next instrumental Lazarus? Chromeo are already pushing the talk-box, the “talking guitar” effect largely neglected since the Eighties electro-funksters Zapp. And as for the future: Cafarella says he’s got his eye on the breath controller, “a Midi controller you can control everything with”. His drummer has his own ideas for competing with Cafarella’s on-stage dramatics – Smith has ambitions to be the first drummer with a strap-on kit.

Shychild’s album Summer is out on Sept 10 (Wall Of Sound)

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