Album Notes

Multi-instrumentalist Chris Conway has been playing the theremin for several years. He has given theremin workshops in the UK and the USA and has recorded with it on over 15 albums of many genres.

His electronic music is usually improvised and layered using effects like harmonizer and delay and reverb building walls of theremin in blending it with live electronics and in on this album two synthesizers.

Chris Conway's previous electronic album Scanning Planet 3 was layered, multitracked and included acoustic instruments. This time he wanted to make a purely electronic album - recorded live in the studio, and strongly featuring the theremin. Theremin is played on every track and is solo with effects on 4 tracks. He also wanted to find, with effects, different ways to use the theremin and create suitable backdrops for it.

The music has a dreamlike spacey ambient quality.

"Contact Light" were the first words spoken by a human being on the moon on July 20th 1969 said by Buzz Aldrin when the light came on indicating there was something under the Eagle lander's feet.



Reviews
"Contact Light is a wonderful ambient theremin album."
- Spellbound Radio


"The idea behind this disc was to further explore the use of the Theremin, and develop a new palette for it. The sound is very much now, but with a footing in the strange sci-fi sounds of the 1950's.
At its deepest I'm more often reminded of the spacier Michael Stearns or Steve Roach, although the melodic context and sounds are generally quite different. Overall, it's in a world of its own, and full of surprising touches."
- Audion Magazine


"Chris has dabbled with some electronic music on his Ayurveda and Scanning Planet 3 albums, now he's gone the whole hog and created a completely electronic album with Contact Light which features extensive sounds of a theremin and was recorded live without multi-tracking.

The atmosphere created by this album is definitely rooted in the heavens, yet it isn't typical spacemusic - if there is such a thing. A live approach to the recording has given the sound a freshness and immediacy due to it not having many textures, also the theremin creates a uniquely alien aura. Indeed, the second track "Emergence" with its watery background got me imagining being on the shore of another planet as the ghostly wails of the theremin hint at unusual lifeforms hidden somewhere in the distance.

Only in the last track "Slow curve home" do we start to hear anything resembling a rhythm or melody, most of the album is a kind of atmospheric collage formed by samples, drones, washes, and haunting wails. On this final track a muffled sequence forms a nice resonant structure over which a short string of notes is repeated and washes of spacey sounds do brief dances before being replaced by something slightly different.

Electronic music's greatest strength, in my opinion, is its ability to transport the listener to different realms -- and not always those intended by the musician -- because of the spectacular range of possible and otherworldly sounds that can be created. Contact Light is a good example of music in this vein, though it may take several listens to really appreciate."
- Dene Bebbington - Wind & Wire