Issue 70

We're marking 100 years since the invention of The Theremin in this month's Electronic Sound. We have a fantastic yellow vinyl EP featuring four tracks by some of the world's leading thereminists too.

Russian boffin Leon Theremin was meant to have been constructing a sonar system when he came up with his iconic electronic instrument. Goodness only knows how audiences reacted when they first heard its ghostly wail, which had no real precedent in music. What’s more, you didn’t even have to touch the instrument to play it. You seemingly just had to wave your hands around somewhere in the vicinity.

We have interviewed a host of contemporary thereminists for our in-depth cover feature, including top players such as Herb Deutsch, Gaudi, Dorit Chrysler, Bruce Woolley, Carolina Eyck, Charlie Draper, Javier Díez Ena and more. We also have a piece about the incredible double life of Leon Theremin by his biographer Albert Glinsky. As well as being the inventor of a bizarre musical instrument, Theremin was a key figure in the Soviet Union's espionage activities, his other creations including a device that snooped on the American Embassy in Moscow for many years.

Elsewhere this issue, we've interviews with Roísín Murphy, Global Communication and A Certain Ratio, while Kris Needs pays tribute to Simeon Coxe of Silver Apples, who sadly died last month. We talk to Annie Nightingale, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Jane In Palma and C418 too. The latter is the man responsible for the music of 'Minecraft', the best-selling video game of all time. Yes, it's sold even more copies than 'Pong'.

To accompany this issue, we have an exclusive seven-inch EP featuring four tracks of top quality sonic voodoo by some of the world's foremost theremin players. On one side of 'Theremin – One Hundred Years' we have Herb Deutsch, a close associate of Robert Moog in the mid-1960s, and Dorit Chrysler, co-founder of the New York Theremin Society. Flip the record over for Gaudi, who has pioneered the use of the theremin in dub music, and The Radio Science Orchestra, an outfit formed by songwriter Bruce Woolley, whose credits include The Buggles' 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. And if all that's not enough for you, the EP is on sunny yellow vinyl as well. Sunglasses at the ready.