Vancouver’s Stephen Hamm Theremin Man has just announced his sophomore release with the advance single “Sagittarius A-Star” and accompanying video. “Sagittarius A-Star” is the first single from the upcoming Theremin Man Album, Songs for the Future, recorded with producer Felix Fung (Pointed Sticks, Colleen Rennison, Mode Modern) and Drummer Shawn Mrazek (Flash Bastard, The Evaporators). The new track layers theremin, synths, bass, guitars and melodic vocals with the end result being a heavy psychedelic aural-dream that references the black hole at the center of our universe; Sagittarius A. Stephen describes the new track “Sagittarius A” as “…an invitation to a fantasy escape, shrugging off convention and letting our minds wander into a deep space fantasy.” Regarding the video he continues, “The question this video asks is what happens when you enter a black hole? Physical objects are crushed, dimensions and time stretch and warp. In a hallucinatory daze you find yourself in a tunnel with strange beings, a drummer, Shawn Mrazek and the Theremin Man!” The video was shot by Vancouver’s R.D. Cane, who’s film career has spanned from CBC television series’ The Beachcombers and Switch Back, to making music videos with Art Bergmann and Maurice and the Cliches among other notable Canadian bands.
Stephen Hamm has been a pivotal member of the Vancouver Music and Arts scene for over 25 years. He’s played bass, keyboards and sang in bands like Slow, Tankhog, Canned Hamm and Nardwuar And The Evaporators. Today, Stephen is Theremin Man, a space traveler and storyteller who sends waves of good vibes and dance beats out to his followers, affectionately known as “The Space Family”. Since stalking the Pacific Northwest with his legendary rock bands, Stephen has shifted his focus to mastering the Theremin, an early electronic instrument that one does not touch but plays by interacting with magnetic fields around two antennae. In recent years Stephen has studied under the tutelage of German Theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck and New York based Thereminist Dorit Chrysler. Stephen’s solo show, based around Theremin and Synthesizer is a psychedelic electro musical journey into new abstract dimensions of sound.
Stephen has played on many important music recordings starting with legendary Vancouver proto-grunge band Slow. In 1985 Zulu records released the Slow album “Against the Glass”, their EP that has been cited as the Pacific Northwest recording that kicked off the grunge movement. The lead single and video from that album, “Have Not Been the Same”, was a hit on Much Music and influenced many young musicians from Kurt Cobain to members of Sloan (Chris Murphy confided to Stephen that Sloan came up with their name by adding an ‘N’ to Slow). Exclaim described Slow as “Canada’s greatest rock’n’roll band” and a Chart Magazine reader poll ranked Against the Glass the 17th best Canadian album of all time and their single “Have Not Been the Same” as the 10th greatest Canadian song. In 2021 Knowledge Network produced a documentary featuring the band called Exposition Demolition. A brief reunion in 2017 resulted in a 10 night stand of sold out performances in Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall.
In the early 2000’s Stephen recorded and toured Canada with BMI recording artists Copyright as their keyboard player in support of bands like Matthew Good, Sloan, Treble Charger and Big Wreck. Between 2000 and 2004, Stephen toured extensively throughout Canada, the U.S. and Australia with his musical comedy duo Canned Hamm. In 2002 the video for the song Father and Son blew up on Quebec’s MusiquePlus becoming the #2 song on the channel’s wildly popular show “Dollar-a-Clip”, for several months. In 2007 Stephen became the permanent bass player for the notorious Vancouver music personality Nardwuar the Human Serviette’s band The Evaporators. He wrote and recorded three albums with The Evaporators for Mint Records and appeared in many of their highly entertaining and, often uniquely Canadian, rock videos (I Can’t be Shaved, featuring Drake and Ogopogo Punk). The band played South by Southwest Music Festival many years in a row and toured with Franz Ferdinand and Andrew W.K.
Website: https://thereminman.ca
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Bandcamp: https://thereminman.bandcamp.com
