November 17th - Day 213

Last week it was free impro rehearsals with Jarvis Cocker, today it was a free opportinity to watch top musicians recording in a studio - the fourth of nine daytime sessions throughout the week at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) as part of their "Calling Out Of Context season of music and sound". Today's musicians were drummer Seb Rochford, theremin player Pamelia Kurstin (both with jazz backgrounds) and Babyshambles bass guitarist Drew McConnell. Visitors (only a few, but I was there early) were invited to stand in a small hallway that divided the studio in two - musicians in one half, recording equipment in the other half and recording engineers going backwards and forwards between the two.

There was a certain amount of setting up to be done, during which time I had a coffee, wandered around a Ghost Forest in Trafalgar Square and took photos of a wet man who'd fallen into one of the fountains, I think trying to reach some loose change. He looked like he was thinking of doing it again, so I gave him a quid. I didn't find out if that was enough to make him change his mind, because I had to head back. I got to the studio in time to watch the musicians groove through a possibly improvised twenty minute chunk of music. Afterwards I asked Seb if it was odd having visitors wandering around and watching. He said it wasn't. Which I guess isn't surprising - he is, after all, a musician and people do watch musicians. Sadly I had to leave before any actual recording took place. Earlier I'd asked the ICA staff what would happen to the recordings. They told me that they didn't know, but that it was a good question. Ultimately the answer seemed to be that the week's recordings would be posted on the ICA's website...though I can't find anything there at the moment. As to whether the artists themselves would use the recordings, they (the staff) weren't sure and wondered if copyright might be an issue.

I also wasn't able to make tonight's ticketed concert at the ICA featuring today's musicians, which was a shame, because I was especially keen to see the theremin in gig action. I like the theremin. Before this musical quest my theremin knowledge amounted to The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations (though apparently not a pure theremin) a song by Supergrass called Richard III and a couple of tracks on Captain Beefheart's first album called Electricity and Autumn's Child. The latter uses the theremin to particularly sonic eerie effect (is that grammatically correct?) and it's the part of the song I always wait for. Today was my third theremin encounter in the last two months (after Miss Hypnotique on the Fourth Plinth and someone called John, with Jarvis, last week). I didn't discover until later that Pamelia is one of the world's top thereminists and now I've read loads about her - including her multi-layered sixteen track theremin orchestra and her rollerskating - and loads about the theremin, and it's all too much to write here, so here she is in action a few years ago...www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ywH1Vj8_U

I want a theremin.

(wet man thanking me for his quid...and below, facing into the sun)