Travels in Thereministan

 

Theremin, occasionally refered to as thereminovox, is an instrument invented by the Russian Leon Theremin in the 1919. It has been called the world's first space-age musical instrument and, incidentally, featured in the soundtracks of many sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's.
    Theremin is a wonderfully simple instrument, but it inhabits a different time/space continuum than most other instruments, since you don't actually touch it while you are playing. I aquired my theremin in 1998 and for the first two years I used it in conjunction with my electric guitar (blowing quite a few amps...). Soon, I started to use it in a modular rig with a KaossPad and other effects and instruments with non-integer control interfaces.
   At the moment I'm performing my new piece for voice and theremin: Litanies in Zero Kelvin.

The Remin' Circus is a loosely textured vehicle for theremin performances. At the moment the vehicle is parked, awaiting collaborators. My idea is that of finding two other thereminists and conquering the world the only conceivable way. Below, are two brief histories of the two precursors of The Remin' Circus: The Remin' Ensemble and Starflesh.

Soundtracks

I have used theremin for the soundtracks of some films I have worked on: Eva Högberg's The Girl and The Frog and Lars Swärd's Imperfectum, a silent movie from 1941. Both of these were done together with Håkan Almkvist and Patrik Sporrong (Kapoor). Also the music for Mikko Kallinen's dance performance Cyb:orgic Sapiens® uses a lot of theremin. You will find more information about all these projects on my Music for Stage page.

A Brief History of The Remin' Ensemble

Max Savikangas, theremin, duck-pipe, voice
Ari Poutiainen, el-viola
Girilal Baars, theremin, voice, balloon

A Brief History of Starflesh

Håkan Almklvist, el-guitar, tapes
Girilal Baars, theremin, voice

Max and Ari had been performing and improvising together sporadically for many years at various concerts and happenings in and around Helsinki. In April 2001, I joined them and The Remin’ Ensemble was formed. After several memorable concerts and happenings, in April 2003 we disbanded, citing irreconcilable differences... Well, actually, it was a matter of time and priorities, mundane and friendly.

This is me at a Remin' gig in late September 2001
(photo by Susanna Åkerlund)

Håkan and I have played together on a several occasions since the late 1990's, but never very conclusively. I didn't know he is into ambient improvisations with electric guitar and he had no idea I am into free improvisation with theremin and voice. But once we had settled this, it seemed inevitable that we would have to try this out together. Fortunately a gig came up and we now had a time and a place to try this out. Some rehearsals and coordinative activities and we were set to go.

Our first performance was in March 2002 at the opening ceremony of Humanistdagarna (Humanities Days), organised by Uppsala University every year.

In September 2002 we worked with artists Mats Nyberg and Eva Högberg and narrator Kurt Nyberg on an installation in the old astronomical observatory in Uppsala, calling ourselves Starflesh Laboratory.

In March 2003 we worked with this group again, though this time in a shopping-mall in central Uppsala, in conjunction with the exhibition 5+5

(photo by Eva Källander and Håkan Almkvist)