Back last summer, we had a spate of synth-shaped cakes - here, here, here and, wonderfully, here. Now Tim write with news that a Japanese Radiohead fan has been presented with this tasty treat, based on an Ondes Martenot - the (roughly) keyboard Theremin, used by Johnny Greenwood, who last year told the Guardian: "I first heard the ondes martenot when a teacher at school played us Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, and I heard it swooping along with the strings. But I had no idea what it looked like, and then finally, about four or five years ago, when we were doing Kid A, I found one in Paris." Greenwood is now a one-man PR campaign for the ondes martenot. He taught himself how to play it, mastering its keyboard and electronic ribbon, which produces the dizzying whoops and whistles. And he met the instrument's most famous virtuoso, Jeanne Loriod, who was Messiaen's sister-in-law. "Just before she died, I interviewed her, and I was telling her how rubbish I thought synthesizers and keyboards were compared to the ondes martenot, but she was saying, no, synthesizers are great as well: she was in her 70s and she was more broad-minded than me. But I think the ondes martenot is wonderful. It puts you in total control of the pitch and expression, and it's as close to singing as I can get. It's a living thing."
Posted by Tom Whitwell. 
: 2:17 am