THE LOTHARS (USA)
"Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas"
Wobbly Music
The use of theremin in psychedelic music
is not so tremendously rare, yet a quintet coupling no
less than four of these funny objects of musical modernary
to one harmonic instrument is really unprecedented. The
Lothars are all of this and more: born out of Jon Bernhardt's
mind, materialised with the help of imaginative fellow-mates
like the Abunai! (Kris Thompson is still part of the group,
but also Brendan Quinn was in the first line-up), The
Lothars drew inspiration from a documentary on the life
of Leon Theremin, who invented the instrument consisting
of an electromagnetic generator and two antennas to give
Lenin's Soviet Union a suitable tool to create the music
of the future. The artefact, however, turned out to be
so difficult to control (it is very sensible to any environmental
variation, as it relies on the electromagnetic induction
generated by the performer body's motion around the antennas...)
that it was soon confined to two opposed contests: academic
(and highly elitarian) electronic music, or sound effects
for sci-fi movies. Conversely, the Massachusetts based
quintet has a decidedly "rock" approach to the perverted
device, albeit with the dainty na�vet� documented in the
mocking Beatlish debut of "Meet The Lothars", released
on Camera Obscura (but for the occasion, the theremins
were only three...). The follow-up to that enticing and
a little weird opus is the much riper "Oscillate My Metallic
Sonatas", which takes advantage of a more fruitful interaction
of Ramona Herboldsheimer's guitar or violin with the background
electromagnetic perturbation, and even more of the inevitable
increase in the technical skills of the four Master Oscillators
(alongside Bernhardt and Thompson, Jon Hindmarsh and Dean
Stiglitz are part of the game). The result is that the
bulk of experimental work rests on more developed compositional
ideas, and that the expressive variety results much enhanced.
The first two Metallic Sonatas are scores of elaborate
abstraction, staged on vast non-Euclidean spaces, somehow
near to Windy & Carl's frescos, while the third is more
concise, nocturnal and mysterious, very fascinating. Aside
form the extended ambient-noise collage of "The Feudal
Resistance", probably the less intentional episode of
the record, the rest of the album is based on short and
trenchant ideas, from the marvellous atmospheric enchantment
of "The Marriage Of Queen Lothera" to the cadenced dark-punk
of "The Trot", trying an easier approach with the graceful
rhythms of "Banjolin" and slipping in psychedelic motion
on the endless glissando of "Hooray For Dane". A real
must for the aficionados of every latitude's improvised
music, but an inviting proposal also for those accustomed
to more reassuring explorations: a piquant affair through
the irrational geometries of theremin is a sure remedy
to the bore of habit...
(Wobbly Music, 9 Charnwood Road, Somerville, MA 02144,
USA)
ENRICO RAMUNNI