Adventurous duo creates ethereal soundscapes
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel are on an odyssey born of a love for non-fixed pitch improvisation
While it’s a given that May is the month of jazz in Atlanta, with the annual Jazz Festival in Piedmont Park dominating the scene, other worthy musical gambits are in play during the run-up to Memorial Day weekend.
On Sunday, May 12, The Bakery serves up an exceptionally tasty triple-bill featuring Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, Space-Saver, and Helton &Bragg. Listening Post regulars will no doubt be familiar with DfTaLS, the world’s most successful and longest-lived pairing of non-fixed pitch instrument players. Space-Saver is the latest project of Travis Thatcher, an Atlanta ex-pat who conjures up joyous and frightening free noise collages from saxophones, drums, and oddments. For the last several years, homeboys Blake Helton (percussion, synth, electronics) and Colin Bragg (guitars, electronics) have been channeling everything from sci-fi soundtracks and Eberhard Weber to Indian ragas and Funkadelic.
Since forming in 2006, DfTaLS has regularly performed at all the standard alternative venues around town including Eyedrum, Railroad Earth, Avondale Towne Cinema, and various art studios. They’ve toured New England and around the Southeast, and performed in Paris, France, and New York City. In 2018 they played Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee.
DfTaLS has officially released five albums: Untitled (2006), Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel (2007), Live (2009), Collaborations (2013), and 10 (2016 on CD, vinyl in 2018). An abundance of music is available on the DfTaLS site and Bandcamp including collaborations with Helton & Bragg, Cave Bat, and Rob Rushin, as well as studio recordings and live shows, much of which is free to download and stream.
Listening Post recently caught up with Scott Burland (theremin) and Frank Schultz (lap steel) of DfTaLS to get an update on what’s been going on in their world.
Listening Post: What was the original impetus for forming Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel?
Frank Schultz: One night, at an Eyedrum open improv session at the Contemporary, Scott brought a theremin and I brought a slightly modified lap steel. We never got to play together, but the idea around what those two instruments might sound like stayed in my head for weeks. I got in touch with Scott to ask whether he was interested. He was.
Scott Burland: Yeah, this wouldn’t have happened without Frank searching for an opportunity to make music that hadn’t been heard before. In a wonderful bit of kismet, something clicked in his mind, which brought this project to life.
Listening Post: What were the first few practice sessions like?
Schultz: Heaven and hell on earth (laughs). In a word, fun.
Burland: Listening back, as I do from time to time, I appreciate our naiveté while we were learning to play our instruments. I wanted to include some of those early recordings on 10, our 10th anniversary release. In one respect, I think it’s best we didn’t. On the other hand, those recordings are truly experimental and serve a historical purpose.
Listening Post: DfTaLS creates a contemplative ambient soundscape in which the listener has a lot of room to wander and wonder, to think and daydream. What are you two thinking about when you're performing?
Schultz: When I’m not checking email on the laptop (wink, wink) … Seriously, I’m usually not thinking as much as I am listening and reacting, getting lost in the moment. When I need to change what I am doing, I will think about how to make that transition. Other thoughts may include “that is a nice cardigan” or “where is my vibrator?”
Burland: I’m always thinking about the music: what Frank is playing, how I’m responding and vice versa. We rarely, if ever, make eye contact, so the music is in charge. At a recent gig, we had a relatively specific discussion about a “plan.” I found myself thinking about the plan, which was a detriment. We are at our best when we are listening intently to what the other person is doing, what we as individuals are doing and how that effort coalesces.
Listening Post: Describe the process of improvising and composing. For an album, I imagine you have to establish some parameters within which to work. What are the differences in recording an album as opposed to improvising in a live setting?
Schultz: Actually, we didn’t set parameters for our releases. On Collaborations, the only parameter was that the pieces were collaborations with other folks. With 10, we got together for a weekend and recorded our improvisations, with the exception of “Dulcamara,” which was an idea we had been playing around with, and picked our favorites from those improvisations that were recorded a couple of months earlier. This was the first album where we went in and messed with the improvisations by adding overdubs, additional effects, and triggering synths. About half of the songs were messed with after the original recording while the other half were just as we played them. So, the short answer is, there is not much difference.
Burland: Most of our releases have been documents of unaltered live performances. The difference with 10 was, during the recording process we came to the realization that we could do whatever we wanted with the original recordings. We were able to add, subtract, and enhance the pieces to paint a different picture. I hope we do more of that in the future. A good example was asking Jeff Crompton to add saxophone and clarinet to “Absinthium,” one of the tracks on 10.
Listening Post: Touring as an improvising ambient electronic duo must come with a few unusual moments. What are some of the more memorable concert experiences?
Schultz: Big Ears (in 2018) was such a milestone for us. Then there was Eyedrum on my birthday in 2008, playing with Shaking Ray Levis and Davey Williams, who recently passed. And we were on tour with Good Noise Bad Noise from England, which was a great adventure. Joe’s Pub in NYC with the New York Theremin Society. Pilot Light (in Knoxville, Tennessee) in 2012 where we had a late-night dance party with the staff listening to Steely Dan.
Burland: Frank picked some good ones, but I will add our first performance at Eyedrum in December of 2006. There was a nice, attentive, quiet crowd with many Eyedrum regulars including board members who were as jaded as they come. What I mean by that is we received compliments from board members who had heard hundreds of performances over the years. That was an important affirmation or validation about what we were doing.
Listening Post: Did you ever imagine DfTaLS would be thriving all these years later?
Schultz: I am always amazed, when looking back, by how we got here. I hate to imagine us not playing together in the future.
Burland: In the early days, we were just getting together every couple of weeks and seeing what developed. At one point, I thought, “OK, what’s the plan? Should we make a CD or do a performance, then move on to other things?” When we decided to perform in front of an audience, the reaction was positive to the extent that we thought we should continue. We’re not finished with this project. There are still many ways in which we can develop it. We are not done, by any means.
Listening Post: What’s next for DfTaLS?
Schultz: We have a nine-day tour in September, which takes us to Chicago, where we’ve never played. We hope to have a new CD release by the end of year.
Burland: We did a gig recently at the Bakery billed alongside violinist Mike Khoury, which ended with an impromptu jam session. That was interesting from the standpoint of learning that there are other musicians with whom we can collaborate and other types of music from which we can draw inspiration. During the September tour, we will be performing with dancers in Chattanooga who improvise movement along with sound and visuals.
It’s been a great ride and we’ve met so many great people and musicians along the way. We are very fortunate.
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Frank Schultz exhales loudly over the phone from his home in Inman Park. The pauses between his words grow longer and more deliberate as he mulls over what truly lies at the heart of the music he creates as one-half of Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel.
Since 2006, the duo, featuring Schultz playing lap steel, along with theremin player Scott Burland, has spent countless nights on stages and in the studio exploring the possibilities of what could arise from the unlikely pairing of their namesake instruments.
Schultz chooses his words carefully. “Rather than taking an intellectualized thought process about it, I just thought maybe these two instruments would sound really good together,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone. “For about five or six years before Scott and I started playing music together, I had been on a quest — I had a goal to play a kind of music that I had never heard before. I reached a point when I actively stopped listening to anything on the radio, stopped listening to any records, or anything else, just so I wouldn’t be influenced by anything I might hear. When Scott and I started playing together, I thought, ‘I don’t know … Maybe?’ It wasn’t until about a year after playing our first show, when I realized that the goal had been reached.”
With a handful of CDs bearing Duet’s name, including their most realized offering yet, 2016’s 10, Schultz and Burland have developed a singular, improvisational dynamic. During live shows, their haunting distillations of harmony, dissonance, noise, and hidden musical dimensions take shape as long, sustained washes of sound as each instrument melds with the other’s ethereal nuances, creating a real-time emotional resonance from their exchange. Every performance is improvised, drawing inspiration from the faces in the crowd, the mood of the room they’re playing, and anything else that might contribute to the atmosphere conjured during their performances.
Throughout Schultz and Burland’s 12 years spent playing music together, both have settled into their roles as distinguished gentlemen of Atlanta’s outsider, avant-garde, and adventurous noise music scene. Together, Schultz, now 56 years old, and Burland, 55, have toured the Southeast, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic states, and collaborated with everyone from psychedelic folk and free improv guitarists Helena Espvall and Bill Brovold to Chattanooga’s old-timey avant-garde outfit the Shaking Ray Levis.
On March 22, Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel is traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee, to play one of the largest stages that such singularly creative music can occupy, the annual Big Ears festival. It’s the first time the group has been officially invited to play the fest.
From March 22-25 the festival boasts performances by such lauded acts as Diamanda Galás, Arto Lindsay, Roscoe Mitchell, Bang On A Can All-Stars, and fellow Atlanta-based gospel-soul post-punk quartet Algiers. Big Ears is a gathering where musicians and music connoisseurs celebrate a multihued universe of songs and sounds that resonate beyond the realm of commercial trends and expectations, while placing an emphasis on the personal aesthetics of each performer.
Landing on Big Ears lineup for 2018 is a high watermark for Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, and the culmination of a musical journey that’s been more than a decade in the making.
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{HTML()}Burland and Schultz have known each other through the Atlanta music scene since the late ’80s/early ’90s, but they’ve only played music together since one fateful evening in 2006.
Throughout the early and mid-aughts, Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery hosted a Thursday night improv session that paired local musicians together in large and small ensembles for on-the-spot performances. During an ’06 campaign to raise awareness for Eyedrum’s activities, Thursday night improv sessions were held at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center.
It was there during one session, that Burland and Schultz were crowded onto a tiny stage as part of a large group improv set with nearly 20 musicians. The cacophony of so many unrestrained instruments was enough to drown out the delicate sounds coming from Schultz’ lap steel strings. And Burland barely had elbow room, let alone space to wave his arms around his theremin antennas.
“I remember looking over at Scott during that set and thinking jeesh, I can’t hear a thing he’s doing,” Schultz says. “And that’s when the idea hit me: We should try this with just the two of us.”
Soon after, Burland and Schultz started to convene regularly — at first, about once a month — in Schultz’s home studio to start experimenting with sounds, harmonies, noise, and dissonance.
The theremin is an electronic instrument designed by Soviet inventor Léon Theremin and patented in 1928. The instrument is best known for creating the eerie, haunted-house sounds of 1950s horror and sci-fi films, and is often thought to be behind the theme music from the original “Star Trek” television series circa Kirk and Spock. The Beach Boys also used a theremin-like instrument to create the psychedelic backdrop heard throughout their 1966 hit “Good Vibrations.”
The electric lap steel guitar is a much older stringed instrument that was electrified in the 1930s and is most often associated with traditional Hawaiian and classic country music.
Relying on wholly different means of play and tonality, these instruments were born worlds apart. But their non-fixed pitch qualities are secretly akin to one another.
Neither Schultz nor Burland had a working knowledge of their instruments when they started playing them. As a natural outgrowth of their approach, spontaneity with the non-fixed pitch qualities have played a key role in the evolution of how they play together.
At first, it didn’t seem like the theremin and electric lap steel shared much common ground. Schultz was running chopsticks and pieces of steel between the strings, and using various objects to draw more unconventional sounds out of his instrument.
“At some point Frank suggested I run my theremin through the same effects as his lap steel — a series of delays, reverbs, and I don’t remember what else,” Burland says. “But that’s what kind of blew everything up for us.”
After tapping into the potential of their treated instruments, in December 2006 Schultz and Burland booked a show at Eyedrum, opening for Washington, D.C.-based sound sculptor Layne Garrett. It was to be a one-off performance, taking their studio experiments to a live audience.
“When all was said and done, I was surprised by how much it actually didn’t suck!” Schultz says. “I remember looking over at Scott and saying, ‘I think we should do this again.’”
Burland recalls with equal reverence how strongly their performance was received.
“The audience was so excited post-show about what we did that we decided to keep going,” Burland says. “It was a great audience, you could hear a pin drop. And the audience included many Eyedrum regulars, including board members, who had some really nice comments.”
Since then, the two have spent more than a decade easing into their shared musical dynamics. It’s become their trademark to pull out a flask before each performance, toast the audience with a shot of bourbon, and dive headlong into the music.
Schultz and Burland’s personalities interact with each other, underscoring a sense of character that’s equally as engaging as the music they create. Each character is cut from equal parts life experience, refined taste, and punk rock ingenuity.
“Frank and I look at the world in a slightly different way, but we respect and appreciate each other's viewpoints, histories, and outlooks,” Burland says. “The differences also tend to irritate us from time to time. But we have so much in common, particularly in our musical tastes, and the common goal of Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel ultimately flattens out all that disagreement. We travel well together,” he adds. “We enjoy each other's company, and when the rubber meets the road, we’re both on board with what this duo is, and what it has become.”
Schultz concurs. “Obviously our personalities influence our music, but I don't think about it when we are playing music. Those differences are more pronounced in the day-to-day, outside of playing, but we work well together. Our differences make us a good team.”
Together, Burland and Schultz create a glowing nocturnal ambiance during every performance. The slowly evolving waves of sound they create give rise to a rich and ghostly atmosphere that can sway from blissfully mesmerizing to a white-knuckle ride. Undulating soundscapes rise and fall, reaching slowly swelling crescendos of sensory overload, drifting in a balance of beauty and tension.
Their shared instincts create an invisible structure that transcends more traditional drone music to achieve its own rhythm and tonal logic. “I don’t think of the lap steel or a theremin as drone instruments, and we certainly didn’t set out to make drone music,” Burland says. “It was kind of a pleasant surprise for us when we started exploring these aspects of their sounds. I like to think of it as the music of the moment. No two shows are ever the same.”
Schultz can lay down a sound that may or may not pair well with Burland’s initial musical response. But as their performance unfolds, the instruments find their own natural harmony, often combining in ways that allow for seemingly endless exploration.
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{HTML()}Avant-garde filmmaker Robbie Land often joins DfTaLS to project original 16mm film collages over the band, heightening the effect of performances by adding a visual third dimension to the music. “Robbie adds an amazing visual element to our performances,” Schultz says. “He gets the music, and typically cuts new reels for each of our performances; he gets our work, even though it is never the same twice. We are not much to look at,” Schultz adds. “We don’t move around much, so it helps the audience relax and let the music envelop them, while having their eyes massaged by Robbie's work.”
For Burland, the appeal of the group’s dynamics strays from crafting a distinctly new kind of music. Rather, he’s interested in what he describes as the “luxury” of experimenting with the dissonant and complementary sounds of a Theremin and an electric lap steel working together.
Duet’s latest album, 10, is a full-bodied studio album that reaches ever new heights. The duo’s previous releases were simply documents of live performances culled together with minimal editing. For 10, Burland spent the weekend at Schultz’s house where they spent two days recording. On the third day, they assembled the release. True to form, some of the material remains untouched. Other songs were converted to MIDI and sent through different synthesizers. All of the song titles, such as “Dulcamara,” “Absinthium,” and “Abstractum Belladonnae” were taken from Charles Lochman’s Dose and Price Labels of all drugs and preparations of the United States Pharmacopoeia , a pharmacists catalog published in 1880. “I had been thinking about using the book as ideas for titles, then at one point decided to flip to page 10 as we decided to call the CD 10,” Burland says. “I was amused to find several entries on Aether — an obvious connection to the theremin — and so it was decided we would use the book further.”
A vinyl pressing of 10 is out in March.
“What we’re doing, particularly because we’re improvising, is experimental in the sense that we are still finding things that we’re able to combine in interesting ways — ways that we’ve never tried before,” Burland says.
It's no longer an experiment. At their best, Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel is two musicians sharing a single headspace and letting the music carry them to a wholly undiscovered realm.
Click here to check out a DfTaLS primer.
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{HTML()}Duet For Theremin and Lap Steel: This self-titled debut CD was passed out as a promo item at shows. The CD offers a glimpse of Burland and Schultz’s earliest explorations into ethereal threads that bind magnetic Theremin waves and resonating lap steel strings. This one’s now long out of print. Ask around. Someone has a copy they can burn for you.
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{HTML()}Live: DfTaLS’ Live CD arrived in 2009. The disc features two live sessions recorded at Kavarna and Eyedrum. Both are presented as unaltered performances that capture the haunting atmosphere the group conjures from the stage. Again, this one’s out of print, but take a look around at some used CD shops. It shows up in the bins from time to time.
Collaborations: In 2011, DfTaLS embarked on a week-long recording tour. At each stop, they paired up with musicians in their homes; some they knew well, including the Shaking Ray Levis in Chattanooga. With others, such as Bill Brovold in New Paltz, New York, the late Richard Lainhart in New City, New York, and Helena Espvall in Philadelphia, their recording sessions capture their first meetings. After saying hello and having a glass of wine, they plunged headlong into the music. Collaborations arrived in 2013, and features the strongest moments from each stop, culled together in chronological order.
Voice of the Dewclaws: Following the 2013 death of Shaking Ray Levis’ co-founder and synth player Dennis Palmer, Schultz released a live CD of a 2009 Eyedrum show. The recording finds DfTaLS teamed up with Palmer and Bob Stagner of the SRLs, along with harp player Renee Nelson. A limited number of CDs were pressed, sales from which benefit the Shaking Ray Levis Society.
10: The concept behind DfTaLS’ latest album was simply to have fun in the studio, while commemorating their 10th anniversary of performing music together. Aside from basic mastering, their previous releases documented live performances, with minimal editing. For 10, Burland spent the weekend at Schultz’s house where they spent two days recording. On the third day, they assembled the release. True to form, some of the material remains untouched. Other songs were converted to midi and sent through different synthesizers. The effects are subtle, but 10 is a full-bodied studio album that reaches a deeper, higher plane of the atmosphere. A vinyl release is due out in March.
DfTaLS with Benjamin Shirley: The group’s most recent release is a four-song EP that finds DfTaLS functioning as a trio with Faun and A Pan Flute cellist Ben Shirley. For this session, recorded at Creative Sound Labs, Shirley’s strings add a dark and subtle depth to the group’s billowing resonance.
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Dulcamara by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
After a decade spent honing a sometimes quiet, sometimes white-knuckle droning ambiance as Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, Scott Burland (Theremin) and Frank Schultz (Lap Steel) stamp their shared legacy in time with their third, self-released album, 10 (out Sun., Oct. 9).
“Dulcamara” is the album’s first single to be revealed. From the opening moments when a quiet wash of static is pierced by the slow resonance of a single lap steel string, it’s clear that interstellar improvisation still lies at the heart of Schultz and Burland’s dynamic. But in just four minutes and 10 seconds a thick and somewhat elaborate (by DfTaLS’s standards) atmosphere reveals a new side of the group. “Dulcamara” takes shape like a soundtrack for the mind’s eye. A soft and fizzing quietude unfolds, but the song shows off a bold step up in production.
The album is more than a documentation of a one-off, one-take live performance, and “Dulcamara” offers just a glimpse of what these two elder statesmen of Atlanta’s avant-garde are capable of creating.
Throughout “Dulcamara,” layers of sound are stacked subtly atop one another, showcasing new dimensions of the group’s alchemy of steel strings and magnetic waves. “We wanted to try something new and see what we could scare up,” Schultz says. “The recording was all very simple, but still very different for us.”
Burland adds: “I don't think we necessarily took this approach on purpose. The plan was to continue recording. We started listening back instead and thought about how to improve the overall piece, adding this, subtracting that.”
The core material that makes up 10 was recorded over a weekend in June 2016. They listened and made adjustment. When they needed inspiration they pulled cards from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt deck of Oblique Strategies cards until ultimately whittling the material down to 10 songs. The results are an impressive ride into new sonic terrain through the collusion of spectral textures and drones that Schultz and Burland’s have made their signature.
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays an album release show on Sun., Oct. 9. Robbie Land will provide a visual accompaniment, and perform solo as well Jeff Crompton will also perform. 7-9 p.m. 27 Waddell St."
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[http://dftals.bandcamp.com/track/dulcamara|Dulcamara by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel]
After a decade spent honing a sometimes quiet, sometimes white-knuckle droning ambiance as [http://duetonline.net/|Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel], Scott Burland (Theremin) and Frank Schultz (Lap Steel) stamp their shared legacy in time with their third, self-released album, ''10'' (out Sun., __Oct. 9__).
____
“Dulcamara” is the album’s first single to be revealed. From the opening moments when a quiet wash of static is pierced by the slow resonance of a single lap steel string, it’s clear that interstellar improvisation still lies at the heart of Schultz and Burland’s dynamic. But in just four minutes and 10 seconds a thick and somewhat elaborate (by DfTaLS’s standards) atmosphere reveals a new side of the group. “Dulcamara” takes shape like a soundtrack for the mind’s eye. A soft and fizzing quietude unfolds, but the song shows off a bold step up in production.
____
The album is more than a documentation of a one-off, one-take live performance, and “Dulcamara” offers just a glimpse of what these two elder statesmen of Atlanta’s avant-garde are capable of creating.
____
Throughout “Dulcamara,” layers of sound are stacked subtly atop one another, showcasing new dimensions of the group’s alchemy of steel strings and magnetic waves. “We wanted to try something new and see what we could scare up,” Schultz says. “The recording was all very simple, but still very different for us.”
____
Burland adds: “I don't think we necessarily took this approach on purpose. The plan was to continue recording. We started listening back instead and thought about how to improve the overall piece, adding this, subtracting that.”
____
The core material that makes up ''10'' was recorded over a weekend in June 2016. They listened and made adjustment. When they needed inspiration they pulled cards from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt deck of [http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/|Oblique Strategies] cards until ultimately whittling the material down to 10 songs. The results are an impressive ride into new sonic terrain through the collusion of spectral textures and drones that Schultz and Burland’s have made their signature.
''[https://www.facebook.com/events/1157688664269569/|Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays an album release show on Sun., Oct. 9. ]''''[https://www.facebook.com/events/1157688664269569/|Robbie Land will provide a visual accompaniment, and perform solo as well Jeff Crompton will also perform]''''[https://www.facebook.com/events/1157688664269569/|. 7-9 p.m. 27 Waddell St.]''"
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Dulcamara by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
After a decade spent honing a sometimes quiet, sometimes white-knuckle droning ambiance as Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, Scott Burland (Theremin) and Frank Schultz (Lap Steel) stamp their shared legacy in time with their third, self-released album, 10 (out Sun., Oct. 9).
“Dulcamara” is the album’s first single to be revealed. From the opening moments when a quiet wash of static is pierced by the slow resonance of a single lap steel string, it’s clear that interstellar improvisation still lies at the heart of Schultz and Burland’s dynamic. But in just four minutes and 10 seconds a thick and somewhat elaborate (by DfTaLS’s standards) atmosphere reveals a new side of the group. “Dulcamara” takes shape like a soundtrack for the mind’s eye. A soft and fizzing quietude unfolds, but the song shows off a bold step up in production.
The album is more than a documentation of a one-off, one-take live performance, and “Dulcamara” offers just a glimpse of what these two elder statesmen of Atlanta’s avant-garde are capable of creating.
Throughout “Dulcamara,” layers of sound are stacked subtly atop one another, showcasing new dimensions of the group’s alchemy of steel strings and magnetic waves. “We wanted to try something new and see what we could scare up,” Schultz says. “The recording was all very simple, but still very different for us.”
Burland adds: “I don't think we necessarily took this approach on purpose. The plan was to continue recording. We started listening back instead and thought about how to improve the overall piece, adding this, subtracting that.”
The core material that makes up 10 was recorded over a weekend in June 2016. They listened and made adjustment. When they needed inspiration they pulled cards from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt deck of Oblique Strategies cards until ultimately whittling the material down to 10 songs. The results are an impressive ride into new sonic terrain through the collusion of spectral textures and drones that Schultz and Burland’s have made their signature.
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays an album release show on Sun., Oct. 9. Robbie Land will provide a visual accompaniment, and perform solo as well Jeff Crompton will also perform. 7-9 p.m. 27 Waddell St. 20836293 http://dev.creativeloafing.com/image/2016/10/DfTaLS.57f7c7a873718.png Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel turns 10 "
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string(3176) "http://dftals.bandcamp.com/album/dftals-with-helton-and-braggDfTaLS with Helton and Bragg by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
?
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel hit the road this month, trekking across the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states, with guitarist Bill Brovold opening and sharing the stage on most nights. Before leaving town, though, the group unveiled two new numbers, both recorded in May of 2014 for Theremin player Scott Burland’s 52nd birthday.
?
Simply titled “DfTaLS, Helton and Bragg 1 and 2,” each of these two numbers reaches beyond the 26-minute mark, building with the slow, and wide-eyed psychedelic ambiance that Burland and lap steel player Frank Schultz have mastered over the years. To call this music experimental is a bit of a misnomer at this point: Through releases such as 2012’s Collaborations CD, or the various recordings documented on Duet’s Bandcamp page, these two have developed a musical language all their own. The billowing textures they create rise and fall, caught forever in a struggle between blissful atmospheres and hair-raising anxiety. Losing oneself in the music almost always entails a trip to the edge of one’s psychological comfort level before being placed right back where the trip began.
? ? ?
What pushes their droning resonance to wholly new places here is their collaboration with guitarist Colin Bragg and percussionist Blake Helton. By and large all four players come from backgrounds steeped in musical experimentation and the avant-garde; the latter two come from jazz and Krautrock-inflected stylings respectively. Together, they summon a deeply meditative sound that is at once chaotic and sedate, and indeed greater than the sum of its parts.
?
Collaboration has long been the means by which Burland and Schultz consummate musical friendships, be it with Brovold, members of Chattanooga, Tenn.’s Shaking Ray Levis, Rob Rushin, or other acts. “Improvising with others can be a really intimate experience," Burland says. "At its best, it creates what William Burroughs called the third mind. An entity separate from the personalities involved in playing the music.”
?
Within the first few minutes of “DfTaLS, Helton and Bragg 1,” the sound comes across a bit more electronic in nature. It’s a totally improvised set. The pairing with Helton and Bragg beefs up the music’s presence with a mire of rhythms and sounds. And with each passing listen, layers upon layers are continually revealed. It’s never the same listen twice, as drones harmonize with dissonant, motorik rhythms that fade like radio waves from a dying pulsar hanging somewhere in the inky blackness of space. The staccato rattle of Helton’s drums, weighed against the lilting tones of Burland’s theremin, and the interplay between lap steel and guitar take shape with an engrossing presence that binds both pieces together for a nearly hour-long plunge into sonic dark matter — the intangible fabric of the cosmos.
?
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays Eyedrum on Mon., Sept. 28, with Andrew Weathers, and again at Oakland Cemetery on Sat., Oct. 31, with Ghosts Project."
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?
[http://dftals.bandcamp.com/album/dftals-with-helton-and-bragg|Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel] hit the road this month, trekking across the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states, with guitarist [http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/larval.html|Bill Brovold] opening and sharing the stage on most nights. Before leaving town, though, the group unveiled two new numbers, both recorded in May of 2014 for Theremin player Scott Burland’s 52nd birthday.
?
Simply titled “DfTaLS, Helton and Bragg 1 and 2,” each of these two numbers reaches beyond the 26-minute mark, building with the slow, and wide-eyed psychedelic ambiance that Burland and lap steel player Frank Schultz have mastered over the years. To call this music experimental is a bit of a misnomer at this point: Through releases such as 2012’s [http://dftals.bandcamp.com/track/duet-for-theremin-and-lap-steel-with-andrew-weathers-thread|''Collaborations''] CD, or the various recordings documented on Duet’s [http://dftals.bandcamp.com/music|Bandcamp page], these two have developed a musical language all their own. The billowing textures they create rise and fall, caught forever in a struggle between blissful atmospheres and hair-raising anxiety. Losing oneself in the music almost always entails a trip to the edge of one’s psychological comfort level before being placed right back where the trip began.
? ? ?
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?
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?
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?
''Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays Eyedrum on Mon., Sept. 28, with Andrew Weathers, and again at Oakland Cemetery on Sat., Oct. 31, with Ghosts Project.''"
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?
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel hit the road this month, trekking across the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states, with guitarist Bill Brovold opening and sharing the stage on most nights. Before leaving town, though, the group unveiled two new numbers, both recorded in May of 2014 for Theremin player Scott Burland’s 52nd birthday.
?
Simply titled “DfTaLS, Helton and Bragg 1 and 2,” each of these two numbers reaches beyond the 26-minute mark, building with the slow, and wide-eyed psychedelic ambiance that Burland and lap steel player Frank Schultz have mastered over the years. To call this music experimental is a bit of a misnomer at this point: Through releases such as 2012’s Collaborations CD, or the various recordings documented on Duet’s Bandcamp page, these two have developed a musical language all their own. The billowing textures they create rise and fall, caught forever in a struggle between blissful atmospheres and hair-raising anxiety. Losing oneself in the music almost always entails a trip to the edge of one’s psychological comfort level before being placed right back where the trip began.
? ? ?
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?
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?
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?
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel plays Eyedrum on Mon., Sept. 28, with Andrew Weathers, and again at Oakland Cemetery on Sat., Oct. 31, with Ghosts Project. Adventurous duo creates ethereal soundscapes 13084366 15103942 /mediaserver/atlanta/2015-33/1439404083-duet.jpg Duet finds new depth in droning ambiance "
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Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel with Andrew Weathers - Thread by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
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string(2630) " DfTaLS conjures ethereal soundscapes using instruments plucked from seemingly incompatible worlds 2013-05-09T15:13:00+00:00 Duet For Theremin and Lap Steel: An unlikely pair makes magical sounds Doug DeLoach 2013-05-09T15:13:00+00:00 http://duetonline.net/
*Clay Walker
*Scott Burland (left) and Frank Schultz of DfTaLS
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel with Andrew Weathers - Thread by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
Two middle-aged men walk into a rock club. The slim one with the receding hairline, wearing a gray cardigan sweater, white button-down shirt, thin necktie, and wiry spectacles, looks like Mister Rodgers' step-brother. His companion, sporting a mop of wavy brown hair that deducts a handful of birthdays from his 52 years, clad in a dark olive sport coat, dark shirt, blue jeans and brown leather clogs, could easily pass for an English Lit professor slumming with his students on a no-school night. The two men quietly confer for several seconds before stepping onto the slightly raised wooden stage and sitting down behind their instruments.
In front of Mr. Rogers' half-brother is a Theremin, an electronic instrument of Russian invention dating from the 1920s, best known for creating the creepy Sirens-of-the-sea sounds in '50s-era sci-fi films. The English Lit professor positions his hands a few inches above a lap steel guitar, considering his options. The electric lap steel is both a product of the same era of experimentation as the Theremin and historically associated with country-and-western and certain types of Hawaiian music. Like the Theremin to his right, the Professor's instrument is hooked up to a laptop computer. Peering at the screen, he slides his finger on the scroll pad, making a last-minute adjustment. Leaning forward, he intones into the stage mike, "Good evening. I'm Frank Schultz and this is Scott Burland. We are Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel."
Scott Burland was born in 1962 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston in 1985, and moved to Atlanta in 1990. Today, when he's not waving his hands around a theremin, he's filling prescriptions behind the pharmacy counter at Kroger.
"I took organ lessons from age six to twelve, and learned a lot of Bach, but I hardly had any interest in playing during my adolescent and early teens," Burland says. 13073660 8191508 /mediaserver/atlanta/2015-17/1368101949-duet_for_theremin_and_lap_steel.jpg Clay Walker Scott Burland (left) and Frank Schultz of DfTaLS Duet For Theremin and Lap Steel: An unlikely pair makes magical sounds "
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