[S06E01] May 2024 - Miles Brown



In this season 6 premiere episode, host Rick Reid plays theremin music from Canada, Italy, and Australia. Rick's interview guest is Miles Brown, theremin consultant for the recent indie horror film Late Night With The Devil.


FEATURED MUSIC*

*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

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


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TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:00  
Rick, this is Theremin 30. 30 Minutes of Theremin, music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now. Here's your host from Chicago, Illinois, Rick Reid,

Rick Reid  0:18  
Hey. Welcome to the May 2024 episode of the theremin 30 podcast, and the first episode of season six. This show started way back in April of 2019 and I'm so grateful for all the positive feedback I've received from listeners around the world, also thanks to the dozens of recording artists who have shared their music with us over the past five years, you may have noticed a slight change in the opening announcement from my friend David Brower. I recently moved from Denver to Chicago. It's taken a while for me to get unpacked, to set up my audio gear and to get back in the groove, but here I am ready to go with another year of great Theremin music from around the world. In this season premiere episode, my special guest is Miles Brown. He served as a theremin consultant on the recent indie horror movie hit Late Night with the devil. I also have new music from two Canadian artists, and I'll take you back to the year 2017 for an album cut from the Italian duo tears of sirens. So let's get started. The Stephen Hamm, the theremin man, recently released another sci fi inspired single from his current album, Songs for the future. I'll play that to start the show. Then I have some dramatic new music from leaf rapids. I'll tell you more about both recordings on the other side. You

the we started the show with the track called, Are you receiving me? The second single from Stephen Hamm's second album. Songs for the future, the album is available as a download from all the usual places, and you can get it on vinyl LP from Steven's website. Also check out the spaced out music video for are you receiving me on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist? Steven has several shows scheduled in and around Vancouver, British Columbia this summer, including a couple at the end of May. So be sure to catch him live if you're in the area, you can see his schedule on the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events, keeping things in Canada. We next heard a song called in the woods from the New Leaf rapids album velvet paintings. It features Carrie Latimer on lead vocals and backing Theremin leaf rapids are set to play. In their home city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, on June 7, it's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events. May 23 marks the day that would have been Dr Robert moog's 90th birthday. To commemorate the day Bob's daughter Michelle Moog Kusa will lead special tours of the Moog CEM in Asheville, North Carolina, on May 29 Torvald Jurgensen has another performance of Knight in Berlin on June 7, dort Chrysler performs in the ambient church concert series in New York City. And on June 9, Dorit Chrysler and Rob Schwimmer will be participating in the annual soundscapes Festival at the karamore Center in Katonah, New York. For details about these events and more, check out the full calendar at Theremin thirty.com and if you have an event you'd like me to place on the calendar, contact me through the website. Let's get back to the music now with a classic cut from Italian recording artists, tears of sirens. I love the combination of the theremin with the two voices in this track from their 2017 album. Hum. Here are tears of sirens with dis edge.

That was disedge by tears of sirens, a duo consisting of Julia riboli and Fabio properi. It's on hum the second of their three albums, and it's available from all the usual outlets. You can see a performance of disedge Recorded live in studio on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist.

The indie horror flick Late Night with the devil had a brief but successful theatrical run earlier this year, before heading to the streaming outlets, the found footage thriller was filmed in Australia with the involvement of my special guest, Miles Brown. I spoke with miles a few weeks ago to find out more about his Theremin music career and how he became a theremin consultant on one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen. Miles Brown, thank you so much for being on the theremin 30 podcast.

Miles Brown  16:22  
Thank you for having me, Rick. It's always a pleasure. 

Rick Reid  16:26  
You know, I've featured your music several times over the last couple of years, but this is the first time I've got you on the show talking. So I have lots of questions for you. So the first obvious question is, tell me how you got to know the theremin.

Miles Brown  16:41  
 I was in a band in Hobart Tasmania, where I'm from, playing sort of grunge music and in the 90s. And my dad was an electrical engineer, and he was really into prog rock and bands like yes and Rick Wakeman and all that kind of thing. And very much a Moog fan of Moog synthesizers. And I was sort of getting into bands like the rentals and stuff which used Moog synthesizers. And I was talking to about my dad about synths, and he said, Oh, the theremin came before the synthesizer, and it's basically the precursor to the synthesizer. And I've got the plans to build one from an old radio technology magazine from the 70s. And so he and I built one together. That's how I got into playing the theremin. I used to get up on stage and mess around with the theremin a little bit. And I just always had one on stage. It was this sort of made out of cake tins and sort of workshop cast offs and and then I just as I as years went on, I got more interested in them, and I bought a big Briar theremin. And that was my first serious theremin. And it was sort of upwards from there. I think my first Theremin CD was the Edward soundtrack that I swapped for a copy of Marilyn Manson Antichrist student.

Rick Reid  17:59  
Somebody got ripped off. Yep. And what kind of Theremin Do you play a particular model now? Or do you still play the big Briar?

Miles Brown  18:05  
I play Moog etherwave Pro. I also have a the big Briar. I actually know the big Briar exploded. I've had, I have a ether wave standard with the fabulous, fabulous Terry Frankel's mods and and then I have the new ether wave, the new Moog eat wave that came out a couple of years ago, which, which I really love. Actually, I actually use that a lot for shows where I don't want to take my eighth wave Pro. And I've just been to France to visit cherry to have my eighth wave pro service last year. So it's, it's in tip top condition now.

Rick Reid  18:40  
Now you have at least three music projects that I know of your solo work, and then you're part of the night terrors and narcoleptor, 

Miles Brown  18:49  
they're the main ones. Yes, I do those things. And I also play Theremin with, I guess on Theremin with other artists. I've been playing with Grace Cummings, Australian songwriter, quite a lot lately, and, you know, other bits and pieces, but they're my main ones. Yes.

Rick Reid  19:06  
What's the difference between the night terrors and narcolepter? How do you differentiate between them?

Miles Brown  19:12  
The night terrors is an old we've been going since the year 2000 so it's much older, and it's, it's basically a rock band with the theremin as the lead singer. So as a thereminist, as most thereminist would know there are limited opportunities for collaborating with other people. Not everyone wants a theremin. And back in the early 2000s I wanted to play Theremin in a loud band, because that's the music that I liked, and that's the music that I wrote, and I just had to create that opportunity. I had some very tolerant friends who were interested in it. And I mean, I'm originally an electric bass player, so in the night terrors, I play bass, and I play Theremin and I play synth, and then we have a drummer and another keyboard player, and that band is, it's a composition. Projects like, it's about writing for the instrument. I really was inspired by the Edward soundtrack and Lydia COVID Howard Shaw's soundtrack, and that model of, you know, the title track of Edward, when it's it's the band playing with the theremin, rather than the orchestral version. That, for me, was the real sort of inspiration point and and, you know, I guess it's a it's a loud band. We it can be quite heavy, and it can be quite atmospheric. And it's really about giving the theremin center stage as a as a singer, rather than maybe the other uses of the theremin, the narcoleptor, on the other hand, is a collaboration between me and a fabulous classical harpist whose name is Mary, and Mary also sings and and that's totally experimental. It's all improvised, and we make it up on the spot. And Mary is a is a absolute musical powerhouse. So I'm really sort of chasing Mary around in that project, but, but the other, the other thing about that is that it's, it's about the micro, tonal aspects of the theremin. So Mary de tunes her harp and sticks kinds of rubbish in it and and screams. And it's all about, you know, when you play Theremin, you're trying to stay in tune. You're it's all about you visualizing the tune and manifesting it. But in this band, it's about we can go anywhere. We can, we can, we can go in and out of tune. There's parts where it's just vocal and theremin. And it's all about leaning into the part that you usually lean away from and making something very in the moment, it could be quite scary playing it for me, because I have no idea what she's going to do, and there's no songs and but, but it's so it's really fun. And they actually just came from a collaboration at an experimental music night that happens in Melbourne, and just turned into a band. 

Rick Reid  21:57  
I want to talk now about something brand new that you've been working on, well, that maybe you worked on a long time ago, but it's brand new to the audience. I was at a movie theater last weekend, and I saw Late Night with the devil. Yes, not only was there a theremin in it, but you were the person playing the theremin. Is that Right? 

Miles Brown  22:17  
Yeah. So this movie, late night with the devil was being produced in Melbourne, and the Cairns brothers, Colin and Cameron Cairns, got in touch with me. Actually, no cam, because he used to play in band called peeping tom in Melbourne, so he's a there's a rock connection there. And they were like, we're doing this movie. And originally they contacted me and said, We need to build a prop the movie set in the early 70s, and we need you to be wondering if you could be a consultant for us and make sure we're building the right prop, like, what Theremin would have been around. And so I was like, yeah, it would be an RCA, so help them with that. And then they were like, oh, one of our characters is going to play the theremin. Could you give him some could just show him how a theremin works, so that he understands what he's doing. So so the so Rees came around to my house, and I sort of showed him how the theremin works. And then they then they will call me and they're like, we've been thinking, maybe it would be nice if you could actually be on set and play Theremin off camera while he's miming, so that it feels and looks right. So then I went down and did that, and then it just kept on snowballing from there, really. And then they were like, obviously, we need you to record the theremin for the for the movie, for the parts. And if you, if you've seen the movie, you know there's, it features in the story, quite a lot. And then I ended up playing on the soundtrack as well. Like my friend Glenn Richards from the band Augie March, was doing the score. And I've played with Glenn many times in over the years. And so I ended up playing on the on the score as well. So it was really fun. 

Rick Reid  23:57  
You were playing on the theme to the TV show at the end of the credits,

Miles Brown  24:00  
there's a version of the of the theme song, which I'm playing Theremin on as well. It's like the theremin version, and that, that the jazz bands stuff, is actually by a different guy. It's Roscoe James Irwin, who is from a band in Australia called the cat empire. So, so yeah, it was, it just happened that I got folded into all of this.

Rick Reid  24:21  
 I remember listening to the music on the closing credits and thinking, I don't know if that's a theremin or not, because it's being played so accurately.

Miles Brown  24:29  
Thierry Frenkel and his amazing repair work on my Etherwave Pro, but that is it is a theremin. Yes, it's my Etherwave Pro.

Rick Reid  24:38  
If you haven't yet seen Late Night with the devil, or if you want to see it again, for further appreciation of the work of Miles Brown, it's available for streaming if you have a subscription to shutter.com or AMC plus, and you can rent or buy it ondemand from the usual places. I have a link to the movie's website in this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com you. Now let's finish this episode with a track from one of miles Brown's other music projects, the night terrors, from The 2023 album, hypnotica. This is called Moon rays.

Rick Reid  28:40
I want to thank Stephen Hamm leaf rapids, tears of sirens and the night terrors for sharing their music with us this month, and a big thank you to my special guest, Miles Brown. Please support these wonderful artists by purchasing their recordings and attending their shows. And thank you to the listeners who support the podcast with small one time or monthly donations. Several generous listeners from around the world have been helping to cover my production expenses over the past five years. If you would like to help a little bit too find the tip jar at Theremin thirty.com a gift of even five or $10 per year would be a huge help. And just to be clear, my show is not a non profit charity. Your donation is not tax deductible. In fact, I reported on my tax return as income. I hope you'll return for my next episode sometime in June, I'll have more new Theremin music and another special guest until then, from my new home base in Chicago. I'm Rick Reid. I'll see you somewhere in the ether.

David Brower  29:50  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin three zero.com.
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