#scifisound

Episode 4: The Sound of Science Fiction

For as long as we've wondered about alien worlds, we've wondered also: what might they sound like? In this hour of Stylus, we listen to eerie and otherworldly sounds, from the dissonant score of The Twilight Zone to the stranger-than-fiction story of Leon Theremin, a Russian spy turned accidental sci-fi pioneer. We hear stories of close encounters with alternate worlds, including the tale of a UFO sighting in rural Newfoundland and the myth of Sun Ra, a jazz musician whose extraterrestrial identity and reality-defying music became a political force.

Listen above, download an mp3, or find other formats at the Internet Archive. To license the program for radio broadcast, please find us on PRX.

"The Sound of Science Fiction" includes the voices of:

Gregory Whitehead, radio maker.

Keith Phipps, editor and founder of The Dissolve.

Joanna Demers, professor of musicology at the USC Thornton School of Music.

Ytasha Womack, filmmaker and author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.

Hank Shocklee, producer, media theorist, and founding member of Public Enemy.

Craig Harris, composer, trombonist, and member of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

John Szwed, director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra.

Ellen Kranzer, co-founder of MASSFILC.

Sally Childs-Helton, percussionist and ethnomusicologist at Butler University.

Matthew Ebel, musician.

Douglas Brode, professor of philosophy and classics at University of Texas San Antonio and co-author of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute. 

Gabriel McKee, author of The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier.

April McLucas, movie expert at Videoport in Portland, Maine.

In the 1930s, a young man from Birmingham named Herman Poole Blount underwent a conversion experience and emerged Sun Ra, a member of the Angel Race. Sun Ra claimed he was a superior being from outer space who was sent to Earth to save its people through music. For four decades, he led his band, the Arkestra, through multiple iterations and diverse styles.

This year we celebrate the late Sun Ra's 100th anniversary.

Sun Ra is considered one of the most influential and innovative musicians and artists of the 20th century for his contributions to jazz and his pioneering use of electronic instruments. He is remembered for the alien identity to which the musician remained faithful for his whole adult life.

For Sun Ra, that otherworldly identity was rooted in very real, earthly issues, including the deeply alienating experience of growing up in the Jim Crow South.

“He began to think of the Earth as a place where evil had been turned loose at some point, and everything got worse and worse,” John Szwed, Sun Ra's biographer, said.

His philosophy and response to a brutal world were inspired by the vast body of literature he read, including science fiction and Egyptology.

Ytasha Womack says a science fiction narrative appealed to Sun Ra because the genre provides the possibility for radical transformation: “People create entirely different worlds that provide a lens to reimagine ourselves.”

Craig Harris, who played in the Arkestra, said the musical innovations Sun Ra pioneered were all in service of his philosophy.

“We’re looking at the same box, but we’re looking at it from different angles,” Harris said of Sun Ra’s musical process. “You’re looking at it from 354 degrees and I’m looking at it from 360 degrees. And that was the whole concept with [Sun Ra]… You can choose your own reality. There's no limits.”

Featuring the voices of Ytasha Womack, filmmaker and author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi and Fantasy Culture and Rayla 2212;” Hank Shocklee, music producer and co-founder of the hip-hop group Public Enemy; Craig Harris, trombonist and composer who performed with Sun Ra from 1976 to 1979; John Szwed, professor of music at Columbia University and author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra.

If you've listened to our piece about Leon Theremin, you might find yourself with a real hankering to try playing a theremin yourself.

It's unlikely you have an actual theremin in your vicinity, but, fortunately, Luke Phillips of Femur Design has created the next best thing: a web audio theremin you can play with the click of a mouse. The responsive interface generates synthesized tones in the style of a Moog theremin. It even has toggles that allow you to adjust delay, feedback, a kind of distortion called "scuzz," and the type of waveform.

Click here to check it out!

One day in 1919, while measuring the density of gas, a young Russian scientist named Leon Theremin happened upon a surprising phenomenon. His body's own electric potential, interacting with the electromagnetic field of the gas meter, could generate a musical pitch, right out of thin air.

From this discovery, Theremin created one of the first electronic instruments—the theremin. You might recognize the sound of the theremin from classic science fiction films. It's that otherworldly ooooeeeeoooooo that's become a defining sonic signifier of the genre. 

But the story behind the theremin—the story of Theremin's life—rivals the plot-line of any film scored with his instrument.

Theremin traveled the world demonstrating his instrument, envisioning that, someday, audiences might listen to entire electronic orchestras. But early commercial failures put a hold on that dream, and Theremin ended up back in the USSR, where he designed the first covert listening devices for the Soviet government—bugs. Brief opportunities to pursue his musical work ended, time and again, in ruin.

Both the inventor and his instrument survived, though neither in the way you'd expect. Join us as we explore the astonishing, science-fiction-like life of Leon Theremin.

“Mr. R” is a retired marine engineer who spent his entire career working on large seacraft, maintaining and monitoring engines, power machinery, and other crucial systems. He was held in high esteem in his field and believed to be a very level-headed and intelligent man.

On December 16, 1996, however, Mr. R saw something in the sky he could not explain. This was not just a strange moving light, or series of lights, on the horizon or a saucer-shaped cloud—it was much, much more. That night he saw something that deeply challenged his understanding of the physical laws of our world.

After the sighting, Mr. R sought out Lee Tizzard, leading UFO researcher of Newfoundland and Labrador. Lee has a responsibility to protect the identities of a UFO witnesses, but he was willing to recount Mr. R's story for us.