Meet the Lothars

Meet the Lothars

     

"Maybe not quite what Leon Theremin had in mind when he demonstrated his wonderful new device in the presence of V.I. Lenin back in the days when a new art for the masses required new instruments, The Lothars conspire to create a monstrous edifice of noise. Ramona Herboldsheimer’s purposeful electric strumming just about manages to hold together the joyfully bizarre arrangements of audio squiggles and deep space scrawls which Kris Thompson, Jon Bernhardt and Brendan Quinn produce on their theremins."
--- Ken Hollings, The Wire

"The [CD] isn't quite the cacophony of electronic bloops you might expect. Instead they get into some muscular psychedelic jams...That said, you wouldn't mistake The Lothars for a boogie band. The Beatles reference in their album title may be a joke, but imagine an outfit whose style starts with the last 30 seconds of "I Am the Walrus" and works outward from there."
--- Brett Milano, The Boston Phoenix

"...sort of like Shonen Knife doing Merzbow covers... [The] combination of naive electronics, self-conscious humor and gothic horror will no doubt incite a horde of imitators."
--- David Grad, New York Press

"Meet the Lothars exists in a sort of friendly corridor of the avant-garde. It's demanding only insofar as the combined swell of three theremins can sound variously like bees, traffic, wind through a silo, steam and assorted manufacturing processes. But the nine instrumental pieces all have their own clear identities and owe a great deal of their architecture to pop sensibilities."
--- David Greenberger, Metroland

"Lothars are a theremin-intensive outfit, and while that gimmick may seem very appealing, it is not in this case. They may be hip enough to be on the bill for the West Coast Terrastock festival happening in San Francisco in April, but we will never endure their live shenanigans again."
--- Anonymous, Time Out New York