The sound of the theremin may recall the Beach Boys Pet Sounds or perhaps Clara Rockmoore's classical endeavors, or you may tend to the great 50's sci-fi and horror movies moodily enhanced by the crying siren song of unearthly vocal and string sounds emanating from this haunting instrument. Over the last decade there's been a surge in interest regarding the instrument from the Leon Theremin movie, the death of Bob Moog, who popularized the instrument, and from the prevalence of the instrument in several avant-rock bands. New York's Barbez is one such band, and they've benefited from the virtuosic playing of one chain-smoking Pamelia Kurstin, one of the most skilled voices to emerge on the instrument in the last few decades.

Thinking Out Loud is an album of solo theremin alongside occasional guitar and piano, with most tracks recorded live in a tour of the UK, one studio track each from Brooklyn and Berlin, and a live track from NYC. Kurstin records and layers the playing of her theremin over slowly unfolding compositions. Eschewing traditional instrumentation, the rhythms over which she works are typically loops captured from her theremin, over which she improvises a mix of lovely and dark statements. Kurstin worked as a jazz bassist before turning to theremin, and her plucked walking bass lines recall that sensibility. Her pitch is superb, her ability to lift and lower tones is remarkable and rarely off the mark, while her sense of timing and development are both deft and embraceable. Ultimately it's the engaging tone of this album that makes it so exotic and interesting, carrying a bright tone into dark places as though a beautiful angel accompanies you into a dark deserted house to show you that, even in blackness, there is light and loveliness.

"Copingheaven" takes a page out of the Fripp & Eno songbook, a beautiful progression where hollow-body electric guitar and theremin-tronics glissfully play. It's a standout melodic moment on the album, a beautiful work that unexpectedly provides a breather from the other otherworldy pieces on the album. "Escheschlorague" starts with lilting loops which slowly take on deeper and more guttural tones, something like an 8-bit game machine gone bad, resolving to ringing feedback and higher pitched bird cries which slowly fade away. "Creature to People" shows us that Kurstin is also an able pianist, giving the listener a hint of her melodic approach outside of the theremin. "Barrow in Furness" is a short tone piece that demonstrate the pitch range of the theremin by pitting extremely high tones against lower "plucked" bass tones, while an improvising layer launches like a trombone playing a melancholy and beautiful melody, gradually moving into the upper registers. It's a great example of the surprising flexibility of the instrument, and of Kurstin's ability to layer this dynamic instrument in a live setting to create an improvising environment for herself. The two strongest pieces on the album are also the longest: "London," which opens the CD uses siren calls that slowly layer and evolve to include a buzzy synthetic sound, while long melodic lines garner an increasingly complex and rich accompaniment as the piece climaxes. "Tonic" closes the album, a live recording from New York's now defunct nightclub, showing Kurstin layering a thick bed of lightly stabbing repetitions over which she plays fragmented tones. At the end you hear Kurstin laughing about the piece, hoping it wasn't "too weird" and describing it as a "broken cuckoo clock," an apt description of this mysterious and epic work from one of the world's most innovative theremin players.