FEATURED MUSIC*
- "Studio 51" - Unidentified Funk Object (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
- "Club Silencio" - Kristoffer Rosing-Schow/The Counterfictionals (Gentofte, Denmark)
- "Levitation" - The Night Terrors (Melbourne, Australia)
- "Fire into the Fog" - Monelise (London, UK)
*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances.
ADDITIONAL MUSIC
- "Opera Glasses" - Phlogiston Theory & Ron Allen (Denver, CO / Seattle, WA, USA)
- "Time Shadows" - Phlogiston Theory (Denver, CO, USA)
- "No Static at All" - Phlogiston Theory (Denver, CO, USA)
- "Meditation," "Memory," "Now I See" (excerpts) - Monelise (London, UK)
INTERVIEW GUEST
CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS
- Visit the Theremin 30 Calendar of Theremin Events for links and details of events mentioned in this episode.
MEDIA LINKS
- The Theremin 30 Playlist on YouTube includes music videos and concert performances of songs featured in this podcast.
SUPPORT THIS PODCAST
CONTACT
- Write to the show: theremin30podcast@gmail.com
CREDITS
- Producer/Writer/Host: Rick Reid
- Opening and closing announcer: David Brower
Copyright 2023 Rick Reid
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00:00:04 David Brower
This is Theremin 30, thirty minutes of Theremin music, news, events, and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now here's your host from Denver, Colorado, USA, Rick Reid.
00:00:19 Rick Reid
Hey, welcome to the October 2023 edition of the Theremin 30 podcast. Thanks to Halloween, of course, October always seems to be a special month for theremin music. It's also a special month for eating too much candy, so I'll be snacking on some fun-sized Snickers bars throughout the show. I have some great theremin music for you to snack on over the next 30 minutes, including new music from Unidentified Funk Object from Canada, The Night Terrors from Australia, and a reworked track from Kristoffer Rosing-Schow of Denmark. And my special guest this month is UK-based singer-songwriter Monelise. Let's get started now with some sci-fi disco music from Unidentified Funk Object, the Nova Scotia-based band featuring Dr. G, Greg Melchin, on theremin and vocals. Here is “Studio 51.”
00:09:43 Rick Reid
We started the show with “Studio 51,” a groovy tune from Unidentified Funk Object from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. After that, we heard “Club Silencio,” a hauntingly jazzy track from Kristoffer Rosing-Schow. It began several years ago as a recording by his band The Counter Fictionals. Kristoffer recently re-released a remix of it and added a layer of theremin, and he made a single edit just for this show. To hear the full-length track, check it out on Spotify and YouTube. After the break, I've got the Theremin 30 calendar of events and the latest single from The Night Terrors. Then later in the show, I'll visit with Monelise, so stay tuned.
00:10:34 Rick Reid
It's time now for a look at the Theremin 30 calendar of theremin events. On Saturday, October 14th, Veronic plays the Solar Eclipse Festival in Arequipa, Peru. On Sunday, October 15th, Wilco Botermans will host a theremin meet-up at his home in The Hague, Netherlands. Ernesto Mendoza will teach theremin workshops in Mexico City on October 14th and 21st, and he will perform at the Museum of Natural History on October 25th. The Divine Hand Ensemble performs in Philadelphia on October 27th. Also on the 27th, Modulator de Ondas perform in Vigo, Spain, and Itchy-O plays the first in a series of Hallowmass concerts here in Denver, Colorado, USA. Finally, on November 4th, the New Note Orchestra performs at the Royal Opera House in London. For details about these events and many more, check out the interactive calendar on theremin30.com. Oh, in this bit of news, I want to mention that season 2 of Loki is now streaming on Disney Plus, and the soundtrack once again features Charlie Draper on theremin and Ondes Martineau, so be sure to check that out. The Australian duo The Night Terrors have another single out this week from their upcoming new album. This track is called “Levitation.”
00:16:56 Rick Reid
That was “Levitation,” a new single by The Night Terrors. Be sure to check out the music video on the Theremin 30 YouTube playlist. There's a link in this month's show notes at theremin30.com. Still to come, a visit with Monelise, so stick around.
00:17:21 Rick Reid
Monelise is a UK-based singer-songwriter who featured the Moog Theremini in her 2019 album, Hauntology. We've played a couple of tracks from the album in previous episodes. Now we get to visit with the artist herself. Monelise, thank you so much for being on the Theremin 30 podcast.
00:17:39 Monelise
Thank you for having me.
00:17:41 Rick Reid
We've featured your music a couple of times in previous shows, and one of the reasons I like to include it is that so many of the artists on Theremin 30 have theremin as their primary instrument, whereas you have your voice as your primary instrument, and then you add all these interesting layers, including the theremin.
00:18:00 Monelise
Yes, exactly.
00:18:08 Rick Reid
So how did you get introduced to the theremin?
00:18:10 Monelise
I was doing my master's in music at Goldsmiths University in London, and I think it was around 2018. We were having just a small showcase amongst the students on my course, and I went and performed 10 minutes of my music. Then one of my coursemates told me that she just felt so much melancholy from my songs, and she told me the theremin would fit so perfectly in these melancholic atmospheres. I was like, oh, the theremin, what's that? So in 2018, I still didn't know what the theremin was, so I went and researched it. Obviously, I fell in love in like one second because it sounds like a ghost, and it really did fit completely perfectly into what I was creating. Coincidentally, that year, 2018, was when I felt like I really found my sound and sort of stepped into this identity that felt like me. I think the theremin was this perfect finishing layer for my music. So after I got introduced to the instrument, I went and took a couple of lessons. My first teacher was Lydia Kavina, who I know you also interviewed on this podcast, who is just amazing. She's like a theremin virtuoso. I also took some lessons from Charlie Draper. So that was how I got introduced and learned a bit about how to use the theremin.
00:19:24 Rick Reid
How did you find your first theremin? Did you just wander into a music store and ask for one?
00:19:30 Monelise
Theremin is, you know, such a niche instrument that, at least from my knowledge, there's not like loads and loads of options available. So I really did just look at the classic Moogs, and I took the synthesizer, the one that looks like this little spaceship-alien-type creature, the white one.
00:19:48 Rick Reid
Yes, the Theremini.
00:19:50 Monelise
The Theremini, exactly. It's also a lot more flexible, and it does fit, I think, better with my music because you can add loads of different atmospheric effects. And I mean, I do honestly, if I had to choose, prefer the sound of the non-synthesizer theremin, like the classic. But for me, the Theremini was sort of a more obvious choice as a relative beginner and somebody who used the theremin more for atmosphere than as a key featured instrument, so to speak.
00:20:17 Rick Reid
What other instruments do you play besides the theremin?
00:20:19 Monelise
So the primary instrument is the piano. You know, I also play different keyboards and synths and anything piano-like, plus my voice, and the theremin is number three.
00:20:37 Rick Reid
It seems to me that playing the theremin is a lot more like singing than it is like playing a keyboard instrument. Has that been your experience?
00:20:44 Monelise
Absolutely. Because a lot of people will ask me, like, oh, what's a theremin? When I start telling them about instruments I play, usually nobody knows, or 80% of people don't know what a theremin is. So then I start showing them YouTube videos, and first they're like, wait, is that lady singing? Like, is that her voice? How is she singing without opening her mouth? So nobody can immediately make that connection between the subtle movements of the hands and this sound, which sounds like something between a violin and a voice and a ghost, like I said. I think it really sounds like it could be a voice, like an otherworldly voice.
00:21:21 Rick Reid
Your music is very much otherworldly and ghostly. I would describe it as something like a gothic romance.
00:21:29 Monelise
Gothic romance, I love that. Oh gosh, I was just having a discussion with someone, you know, like two days ago about how my music sounds like gothic romance. That's so crazy that you use that exact same terminology.
00:21:40 Rick Reid
Do you feel that that's limiting, where you kind of have a brand or a trademark sound like that? Do you ever just go crazy and do heavy metal on the side?
00:21:49 Monelise
Well, you know what? Actually, I'm very, very shape-shifting, believe it or not. And my second album, which is coming out October 27th, is going to be very different from Hauntology. Hauntology was definitely, you know, pun intended, a very haunted and haunting album.
00:22:06 Rick Reid
I think it started as a stage show. Is that right?
00:22:09 Monelise
I was telling you about my master's degree at Goldsmiths. So that was a year between 2017 and 2018, and I had a graduation project, which was, well, we could pick between making an album or a one-hour live show. So even though I was very resistant to it, I ended up picking the live show, which was more out of my comfort zone. But I'm so glad I did because I learned so much from it. Yeah, so all of my songs that year kind of came together into this live show, and hauntology—the name was actually coined by Mark Fisher, who used to also lecture at Goldsmiths University—refers to a sense of feeling perpetually haunted by the past. So it doesn't just mean haunting, you know, as an adjective. It means this very uncanny sort of feeling, almost like being trapped in the past or haunted by the past and unable to get out of it. That was the feeling that I tried to capture in those songs on the album. So after all of that came out in a show, which was very audiovisual, like a lot of props—there was this old record player on stage—then I was like, well, I need to capture this in the studio album. So I started creating the album, which wasn't that difficult of a process because I used most of the same arrangements as in the live show. That was a very interesting way of doing it a bit backwards, like the live show first and then the album. But yeah, great learning experience.
00:23:28 Rick Reid
I saw an e-mail newsletter from you recently about theremin meditation music.
00:23:36 Monelise
Yes, so my Patreon page is actually relatively new, but my fans have been coming over there, which I'm grateful for. And I've been offering some unique perks to my Patreon supporters, one of which is indeed my meditations. I started creating meditations a few years ago, but because the theremin is such a transportive instrument, so otherworldly, I realized it would be the perfect instrument to integrate into my meditations. I recently released two singles from my second album, the first of which was “Blackbird's Breath.” So I was kind of embodying the spirit of this blackbird through a theremin melody, you know, somewhat but not really inspired by the song, plus some spoken word, meditative journey-type things. I guide the listener to connect with the spirit of the blackbird's breath because actually the blackbird's breath is a metaphor for the spirit of creation. So I created a meditation that guides people to connect with that spirit within them in order to create this very unique, transportive experience featuring the theremin. So I've had some really great feedback about those meditations.
00:24:42 Rick Reid
How do people get involved in your Patreon program?
00:24:45 Monelise
So they would have to go to the website patreon.com/monelise. You can also find the link to my Patreon on my website, monelise.com, or my Instagram, instagram.com/monelisemusic, and you can sign up. It's only, I believe, $7 a month at the moment. I was like, I don't know why it's equal in every currency. That doesn't really make sense, but basically it's seven. And yeah, you get loads of, like, at least four to five posts per month. Once you join, you access the entire archive. I have secret songs on there that I've never released. I have a new custom meditation every month. My patrons also get all the merch discounts. They hear all the announcements first. Soon we're going to start having private Zoom hangouts too. Yeah, and it's non-obligatory to continue. So one can even just join for a month, check everything out, and if it's not for them, they don't have to continue.
00:25:35 Rick Reid
Thank you so much for being on the show. I enjoyed visiting with you, and I always enjoy listening to your music.
00:25:40 Monelise
Thank you so much for having me, and I love this podcast. It's amazing.
00:25:43 Rick Reid
Let's finish the show with a full track from the Hauntology album by Monelise. This is called “Fire into the Fog.”
00:29:30 Rick Reid
A big thanks goes to Unidentified Funk Object, Kristoffer Rosing-Schow, The Night Terrors, and my special guest, Monelise. And a special thanks goes to the listeners who support the show with small one-time and monthly donations. Until next time, I'm your host, Rick Reid. See you again soon, somewhere in the ether.
00:29:50 David Brower
You've been listening to the Theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at theremin30.com.
