Head[case]

Sad Freq. Is both a project name and nomenclature for Christchurch musician/filmmaker John Chrisstoffels.

John has been a veteran musician in a number Christchurch rock bands, most notably the bass player for The Terminals and cellist for Dark Matter.

For the last 10 years he has dabbled in the unearthly sounds of the Theremin building up a number of solo and guest spots amongst the rubble of Christchurch reimagining. In particular he is one quarter of the tabletop electronica band Les Baxters who incidentally have their own imminent LP release sometime in 2021.

The music was originally written and performed as an accompaniment to a solo show of 100 surreally shaped clay heads called Head[case] created by artist Julia Morison. One of the heads graces the record cover and the show has slowly been touring the country (so far Christchurch, Auckland and Tauranga) .

The Theremin is little more than distorted radio waves where the volume and pitch is affected by the intervention of a moving body between antennas. In the same way as we might once have heard short wave radio drifting in and out of phase as atmospheric changes dictate. The manipulation of Mantovani’s late night haunting strings become a call to the Theremin’s reply.

Tracklisting

1. Side A
2. Side B