New addition to therefam [Lost Volts LV4 Theremin]

I’ve been playing digital theremins, Open Theremin V3 and V4, for the past few years, but I’ve just taken delivery of my first analogue theremin, a Lost Volts LV4. I’ll post some videos soon.

Initial impression: easy to set up and play, a lovely, smooth tone, a pitch field that is a bit less linear than the V3/V4 and this does take some getting used to, and a warm-up time of only a few minutes after which the field is stable. Controls are simple, ultra-sensitive and also include a built in waveform dial that subtly changes the tone.

Grow For Me [Review: Vesper]

Like literally all of the best films, Vesper begins with text explaining the apocalyptic future we are about to enter: one where biotechnology has gone rogue, destroying much of the world and much of humanity. Rich people live in distant citadels shielded from the bio threats while everyone else scrabbles around in the mud, relying on the citadels for terminator seeds.

Vesper is a young girl growing up in an abandoned farmhouse looking after her terminally ill father. They are hermits who refuse to join the collective run by her uncle, and Vesper ekes out an existence scavenging or trading for food and for the bacteria needed to keep the father alive, while studying bioengineering using materials she has stolen from an abandoned laboratory. Her life changes when a flying biomachine from the nearest citadel crashes, and she rescues its inhabitant, a strange, pale woman, and brings her home.

Watching an indie sci-fi film like Vesper was a welcome change from the Marveltsunami that has swept through cinema in recent years. Vesper’s forest setting and biological creations reminded me of another indie sci-fi movie, Prospect. Both feature a young lead character having to fend for themselves in a hostile world and amongst hostile adults, played by Sophie Thatcher in Prospect and Rafiella Chapman in Vesper. Neither pull their punches when it comes to pain, suffering and despair, and both use special effects sparingly and intelligently rather than simply flooding the screen with lightning bolts.

Along with the understated effects comes the understated villain, the uncle, played by Eddie Marsan. He’s creepy, selfish, deceitful and vicious when he needs to be, but he’s not angry with you – just disappointed. He’s as far from a Marvel pantomime supervillain as they come.

Score: Three perfectly bio-engineered stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Seasons Of Love [Concerto for Theremin by Kalevi Aho]

Clara Rockmore, in her “Theremin Method” published in 1998, defined thereminists as those who use the theremin as a voice to interpret real music, rather than a magic toy for producing strange and eerie sounds. Robert Moog once lamented that Leon Theremin invented an instrument with a unique sound, but musicians simply used it to play in existing musical styles.

I like Clara Rockmore, and I like Robert Moog. But which is better? There’s only one way to find out!

Kalevi Aho’s Theremin Concerto is a modern Modern Classical classic. I’ve heard Carolina Eyck perform it twice now, once in a streamed concert and once at the Royal Albert Hall during the 2022 BBC Proms. It bears repetition – I found the first time difficult, something I often find with modern classical, and I felt able to appreciate it much more the second time. There are eight movements, each corresponding to one of the eight seasons of the Sami – take that, Vivaldi! and there is a real sense of a cycle, with each movement a natural progression from the last.

Aho tends towards Moog’s vision for the theremin, celebrating its unique sound and properties – broad octave range, infinite legato, smooth glissando. There’s never a sense that the theremin is imitating a violin or any other instrument, in fact there are times when different sections of the orchestra often seem to be imitating the theremin. The concerto also features theremin and voice duets, Eyck’s speciality, and there are passages of abstract or perhaps magical sound as well as imitated birdsong.

Aho has described the theremin as a shamanistic instrument and its player as a magician. This is never more true than when watching Eyck’s highly expressive style of play, casting musical spells through movement. The Albert Hall was the perfect venue for a magic show. This is a performance space that feels like its’ own self-contained universe, and a universe in which it is completely normal to look up and see the inverted mushrooms floating above.

Although the focus is on the theremin, the concerto also stands out in its use of percussion, which is often subtle, but still central to every movement, and incidentally requiring a fascinating line-up of unusual percussive instruments and machines.