Electronica act controls music with gamer glove

By Guy D’Astolfo

The duo returns to Cedars tonight.

Thomas Myrmel of the synth-duo Controllar has vivid memories of his first trip to Youngstown.

It was a hot day in the summer of 2008, and Myrmel and singer Anat Spiegel made it to Cedars early.

“We wandered around downtown and it felt like a ghost town,” he said. “We got back to Cedars and nobody was there and we kept saying ‘where is everyone,’ but they said people in Youngstown come out late. And sure enough, about 11:30 it was like five busloads just pulled up. It was a great night.”

Myrmel and Spiegel did that 2008 tour on a 1979 Honda Goldwing motorcycle. Other than a laptop, the duo has no instruments to lug around.

“We logged about 6,000 miles around the U.S. on that tour. Some cities stuck out in our mind, and some we tried to forget,” said Myrmel, adding that Youngstown is in the former category.

Myrmel, a Minnesota native, met the Israeli-born Spiegel in Amsterdam about eight years ago. That city remains their home base when they’re not on tour.

Controllar — the word is the Spanish verb meaning “to control” — will return to Cedars tonight. The duo creates a wide-ranging montage of music, ranging from atmospheric electronica to silly techno-bop romps.

Onstage, it’s hard to find a comparison to Controllar’s act.

Spiegel sings with jazzy breathiness while Myrmel “plays” the laptop with a rigged-up video-game control glove — waving his hand like a conductor, but never touching the keyboard.

“[The glove] is a controller for holding the sword for Zelda,” explained Mrymel. “It’s a predecessor for the Wii. The company that made them went out of business because computers back then couldn’t handle it.”

Myrmel said what he does is “a whole new level of interaction with the music. Electronic music doesn’t have to be pushing buttons and moving faders.”