Written by Sean Michaels
In April, I published a novel calledUs Conductors, a kind of dreamed-up version of the story of Lev Sergeyevich Termen, inventor of the theremin. Termen was a real person, a Russian scientist who brushed shoulders with Jazz Age greats and some of the greatest classical composers of the early 20th century. But I'm a writer and music critic living 100 years later, someone who loves Robyn as much as Rachmaninoff, and this story of longing, electricity and espionage is as shaded by modern sounds as by dusty 78s.
Here's a collection of songs that seems part of the same conversation as Us Conductors, even if they aren't all of the same time.
Clara Rockmore, 'The Swan (Saint-Saëns)'
Clara Rockmore was the greatest theremin player of all time, and she is the hidden heart of my book. Lev fell for her; he fell for her and, as I imagine it, kept falling for her the rest of his life. The love was partly true and partly imaginary, but that is what the theremin's about, after all. An instrument played without touching, just by hands in the air. (If you're new to the concept, there's a better demo here). And Rockmore's version of "The Swan" floats through Us Conductors like a precious, fading memory.
Peter Pringle, 'Gymnopédie #1 (Satie)'
I heard Peter Pringle before I heard Clara Rockmore: a Canadian thereminist on CBC Radio one night, ghostly and perfect. With Us Conductors, I wanted to capture the theremin's otherworldly beauty — as Pringle does, here — instead of treating it as a sci-fi novelty act. There's a fragility to that electric sound, as delicate as a voice.
Cocteau Twins, 'Pink Orange Red'
But theremin recordings don't tell the whole story. The music of the Cocteau Twins was one of the biggest influences on this book. Drenched in echo and reverb, these are songs that feel bright and faded at the same time — live and remembered, present and past. And Liz Fraser's [the lead singer's] vocals are gorgeous, indecipherable, somehow impossible.
Joy Division, 'Disorder (live at Les Bains Douches)'
Not everything is sweetness and light. Love is sometimes brutish, longing's sometimes sharp. Hear it in Joy Division, especially their noisy, feral Live at Les Bains Douches from 1978. This is a vicious yearning, brutal and fast, a feeling just as familiar as any softer thing.
Talk Talk, 'I Believe in You' (single version)
Or listen to the slow revealing of "I Believe in You," a song so beautiful, almost baroque in its handsomeness, and also so slightly strange. From 1988, the year of "Don't Worry Be Happy" and George Michael's Faith, but here a mingling of folk, jazz and new music — uncanny, with bassline groove and a rising choir, the dream of a future sound.
Alicia Keys, 'Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart'
While I'm thinking about "future sounds," I find myself reflecting on this gorgeous single, from 2010. It's a song that didn't feel quite of its time — nor does it seem of today. The burbling synths, '80s thunderclaps, sometimes Super Mario and sometimes Johann Sebastian Bach. For me the out-of-time-ness blues with a sense of timelessness — these new/old chords, these new/old sounds, gesturing at a new/old heartbreak.
Bea Wain and Larry Clinton, 'Heart and Soul'
Old standards have the same new/old quality, adaptable to anywhen. Wain sings with a love that seems at once familiar and frisky, closed and loose. I picture Lev and Clara dancing at New York nightclubs, with cresting songs like this, and imagining how simple their life together could be.
Sam Cooke, 'Nothing Can Change This Love (Live at the Harlem Square Club)'
I also wanted to hold onto the idea that dance clubs in the '20s and '30s weren't boring, anemic ballrooms. Although most of our period recordings are of pleasant, mild-mannered performances, these were hot rooms with ecstatic musicians and dancers, with sweat, celebration and the suggestion of sex. Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club was recorded decades later, but it's always been a great example of that notion. Whereas Cooke's studio albums are majestic, tasteful works, the 1963 live record captures the frenetic energy of an actual Cooke concert. And here the songs have a different spirit, amid the packed bodies and wild cheers.
Nicolas Jaar, '^Tre / Etre'
Jaar's music sounds only like itself. This is piano and sample, cut-up and chirp, like the soundtrack of pure, spooling memory. Most of what we remember is not whole — there's a story to it, maybe, but not the whole story. No context, just taste, touch, sight and sound.
Tim Hecker, 'In the Fog II'
At the end of Us Conductors a man is in a room, listening, searching, trusting and untrusting what he hears. For me, only Tim Hecker could soundtrack it: a music both sensical and random, a beauty that asks to be (but never is) solved. You can't help but hunt for a pattern in the noise, a sense of message or sender. And Lev, too, imprisoned in Moscow, pores over a chance transmission. How much is intended, we ask, and how much is not?
Sean Michaels is the author of Us Conductors (Random House), hailed as "a novel of epic proportions" by Brendan Canning in The Globe and Mail. A resident of Montreal and founder of the music blog Said the Gramophone, Michaels was part of the Polaris Prize grand jury in 2013. He will be reading from Us Conductors at events in Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo, B.C., later this week.
