Electronic Sound Issue 70 2020

English | 100 pages | True PDF | 63.77MB
We’re marking 100 years since the invention of THE THEREMIN in this month’s Electronic Sound. We have a fantastic yellow vinyl EP featuring four tracks by some of the world’s leading thereminists too.

Russian boffin Leon Theremin was meant to have been constructing a sonar system when he came up with his iconic electronic instrument. Goodness only knows how audiences reacted when they first heard its ghostly wail, which had no real precedent in music. What’s more, you didn’t even have to touch the instrument to play it. You seemingly just had to wave your hands about somewhere in the vicinity.

We have interviewed a host of contemporary thereminists for our in-depth cover feature, including top players such as Herb Deutsch, Gaudi, Dorit Chrysler, Bruce Woolley, Carolina Eyck, Charlie Draper, Javier Díez Ena and more. We also have a piece about the incredible double life of Leon Theremin by his biographer Albert Glinsky. As well as being the inventor of a bizarre musical instrument, Theremin was a key figure in the Soviet Union’s espionage activities, his other creations including a device that snooped on the American Embassy in Moscow for several years.

Elsewhere this issue, we’ve interviews with Roísín Murphy, Global Communication and A Certain Ratio, while Kris Needs pays tribute to Simeon Coxe of Silver Apples, who sadly died last month. We talk to Annie Nightingale, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Jane In Palma and C418 too. The latter is the man responsible for the music of ‘Minecraft’, the best-selling video game of all time. Yes, it’s sold even more copies than ‘Pong’.