The theremin can often make for an uncomfortable listen. While a historical achievement in electronic instruments, it has been relegated as a novelty rather than a ubiquity, something its admirers would likely bemoan. However muddled its application and relevance has become, its early performers were virtuosos, fitting the instrument among entire orchestras in place of vocals and stringed instruments.
Clara Rockmore was one of these unusual talents. As an adept violinist, her skill for precise movement transplanted deftly onto Léon Theremin’s titular instrument. On “Clara Rockmore’s Lost Theremin Album” recorded in 1975, her sister, Nadia Reisenberg, provides the backdrop for the theremin with measured and subdued piano arrangements of classical compositions. As each track’s centerpiece, Rockmore’s instrument zips as a string instrument is some places and lingers solemnly as a contralto in others.
“Air” comfortably finds itself in the latter category, dipping low into the theremin’s ‘cello’ register. Rockmore’s vibrato is dramatic and exacting. An aria that may have read originally as a somber lullaby finds itself in uncanny territory here, conjuring images, however unfairly, of half-broken radio transistors, long-abandoned chambers, and mid-century horror soundtracks––a dark and somewhat disconcerting rendition worthy of recognition, all the same.
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About the Curator - Psetta
Psetta is a Los-Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist & musician. Hailing from rural Maine, he curated two community radio shows for several years, flirting with mundane, innovative & surreal sounds.
He runs a biweekly submission-friendly playlist with So Fertile, “summer but I don’t like heat”, covering upcoming, obscure, and quintessential Lo-Fi, Electronic, Dream Pop, Ambient, & Experimental music.
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Zanmi kanmarad – Claudette et Ti Pierre
24 March 2020
“Zanmi kanmarad” was first released in 1979 on Claudette et Ti Pierre’s second Macaya Records album, Camionette. Information on the duo themselves beyond Discogs’ dedicated archivist community proved to be more difficult to piece together…
