Outside the café, the man stands transfixed. He was just wandering home, I guess, or off to the pub. What will he say when he gets there? Could he even make out the Electro-pop madness that we are experiencing out there on the street? There was this blond woman, see and she was singing some weird Euro-electro song and waving her hands at this big steel spike. And there's was this funny noise, like flying saucers... He shrugs, and turns away.
Earlier in the evening, another solo set by Alexander Thomas (previously known as Loxodonta) lulls the gathered coffee drinkers to a blissful, respectful silence. Frantic pedal pushing helps create layers of lush slow-changing harmonies over which he plays haunting melodies. These are gentle thought pieces, synaesthetic narratives of the kind only a Holophonor could recreate. The seagulls in the last track are particularly impressive.
That is just one example of the strange power of the theremin. The traditional Science Fiction overtones are far between and only really crop up once in Dorit Chrysler's set in a piece that she wrote for a film which is menacing and weird. She tells me later that she has been banned from playing in some countries, that people think that the theremin is imbued with Dark Magick so much so that a priest in Croatia even held up a crucifix as she played the Devil's Instrument. Alexander Thomas has a story about a friend who asked him where the wires were.
Tonight however, apart from the one scarey interlude Dorit's tour of the theremin includes bossa nova, cheeky and sultry jazz, electro-pop and an impressive demonstration of singing whilst playing such a precision instrument. There are a few serious numbers, some very flowery la la la music but generally it is all very light-hearted and completely different to the previous set, being more pop songs than atmospherics.
I sit in the small café, try not to annoy people with too many flash photographs and sip my wine. This is all rather refined, I think, before the next burst of comedy from Dorit makes everybody smile. Strange it may seem to the casual passer-by, but this sort of music should, nay, needs to become a familiar household sound and not the reserve of sci-fi soundtracks.
