The Wisdom of JG Thirlwell, or how I learned to stop worrying and use pitch correction
When Foetus gives you advice, pay attention.
I should explain.
JG Thirlwell exploring a prepared piano in Colchester, August 2023. All photos by One Man Underground.
Occasionally I’m in a band. You’ve not heard of us, so don’t bother asking. Bandmate Hypnotique is one of the UK’s top theremin players. Her ability to pick melodies literally out of thin air is so extraordinary, she once taught Eamonn Holmes ‘Moon River’.
Alas, as I found out when I first got Covid and bought a theremin on credit out of boredom, it is notoriously difficult to play the theremin well… but incredibly easy to play it badly. We’re not all Eamonn Holmes.
One Theremin Underground
Over the years, many have used it as a noise generator, rather than a melodic instrument. 1950s science-fiction cinema is full of theremin-soundtracked UFOs, most notably in ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’. Over 70 years later, it still sounds like the future.
Technology has progressed since Leon Theremin first experimented with electromagnetic fields in the 1920s and, having developed a bunch of models over the years, Moog Inc. created the next evolutionary step of the theremin - pitch correction. Yes reader, thanks to the Theremini, atonal glissando cacophonies are no longer inevitable to the novice!
Classically trained thereminists are outraged. This, surely, is cheating. It takes all skill out of playing the instrument, so any idiot (including me) can wave their hands around at random and create something that need not sound like a cross between an asthma migraine and a cat chewing a bee.
Hearing this, my inner snob tried learning the hard way. Books and lessons from virtuosos of the instrument apparently paid no dividend - whatever the effort, finger techniques needed to pluck notes from the air seemed beyond me. So I, like so many others before me, resigned myself to making weird noises with it instead, occasionally getting it out at parties for guests to have a go. The musical equivalent of a VR headset.
Enter JG Thirlwell.
JG Thirlwell in London, August 2023
Summer 2023. I left the bunker to see Jim play his only 2 UK shows of the year - the JG Thirlwell Ensemble in London, playing the hits of Foetus with a chamber orchestra; and ‘Silver Mantis’, a piece of sound art in Colchester. The Ensemble show came first, in West London’s stunning Bush Hall, where his band performed one of the best shows not only of the year, but up there with the best I’ve ever seen. Casting a commanding presence on stage, you might not necessarily think the highlights of 40 years worth of Thirlwell’s lyrical nihilism would easily match a band featuring violin and harp, especially when played so beautifully by Angharad Davies and Emilia Agajew respectively.
The JG Thirlwell Ensemble, London 2023
Reader, it sounded incredible. ‘Venture Bros.’ and ‘Archer’ fans know that Thirlwell has long since proved his compositional chops, but hearing these arrangements of Foetus classics live on stage made the point viscerally. This was certainly one for the ages. Make every effort to see this show at your earliest opportunity. Because if it’s good enough for a front-row Marc Almond, caught grinning and applauding out of the corner of my eye, it’s good enough for you.
Less than a week later, a far less confrontational figure shuffled on stage in Colchester. Warmed up by local modular synth musician (and friend) White Noise Winter, Thirlwell stood behind a laptop, backed by abstract visuals, flanked to his right by a grand piano. To his left, a Moog Theremini.
JG Thirlwell in Colchester, August 2023
Well I’m intrigued.
Billed as “sound art”, I knew ‘Silver Mantis’ would be a very different proposition to London. After the awesome musical bombast of the reinterpreted Foetus catalogue in front of a sell-out crowd, quadrophonic ambient dissonant textures filling a half-empty deconsecrated church was always going feel… different. That said, as a fan of experimental music, it was certainly of great interest.
After a while, he walked over to the grand piano and…
CLANK
Pioneered by John Cage, brought to wider prominence by the likes of Aphex Twin, the prepared piano turns a melodic instrument into a percussive one by littering the strings with metallic objects. For Thirlwell, a series of crocodile clips. It’s a sound I absolutely adore, yet I’d never heard a prepared piano in real life.
Yes, this was very different to the Ensemble show. But the second that first note was played, I was every bit as excited.
Pictured: JG Thirlwell’s prepared piano. All photos by One Man Underground.
I knew the theremin would come soon. Knowing also how difficult it is to play, I was curious to see how he would play it. Melodic glissando, or sheer noise?
Neither.
He had pitch correction on.
Well. Nobody could ever accuse JG Thirlwell of cheating at music.
Now, any attempt at an objective review of this performance went out of the window. This suddenly became very personal.
Rushing crowds at the sold out London show prevented a meet and greet. In humble little Colchester though, audience in double digits, opportunities for interaction were far greater. Especially when you’re mates with the opener. Nervously, I asked after the theremin, expressing my concern about what others had told me.
Fading memory forces me to paraphrase, but the point he made is one of the most important lessons I have ever been given as a musician. Pitch correction, he explained, is a tool that’s there to be used. So why not use it?
Why not. Like all the best advice, it seems so obvious.
After further conversation and an on-stage tour of the piano, the advice lingered. Creativity need not be a slog. If the tools to make art easier to create exist, let’s use them.
Subsequently, the Theremini came out of storage. Everything was turned to maximum - volume, delay, pitch correction. Fear of failure and imposture abandoned, it sounded wonderful.
I haven’t looked back. I’ve even started playing it on stage.
So thank you, JG Thirlwell. Not only for one of the best live shows I have ever seen, but for a piece of wisdom that has transformed my approach to art. In the unlikely event you’re reading this, I hope you don’t mind me passing it on to the readers of In Spite.
Just don’t tell my bandmate. She’d be so ashamed.
One Man Underground with JG Thirlwell, aka FOETUS. Photo courtesy of Jacqui Giffin.
