v o i c e s c a p e s [best of]

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0bleak

Well-known member
I wish I could remember the name of this one CD i used to have that I sold after a while, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate anyway since you asked for "best" - she was an "experimental" vocalist in the way that you might have found be to satirized by Chris Morris.
anyway...

 
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0bleak

Well-known member
mvuent said:
was hoping you'd say that! surely a lot of stuff you've unearthed on "hardly baked" would quality...

e.g. the wind voice here (probably other moments from this very strange album as well)

Click to expand...


I'm sure you probably know this tune from the group they were in a couple years earlier:


"was originally conceived as a bossa nova song played on guitars, but the other two members of the band, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, were not impressed with the idea for the track and it was abandoned (...) Although taken aback by the suggestion, Stewart and the others agreed to try Godley's idea and create "a wall of sound" of vocals that would form the focal point of the record. (...) Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a "choir" of 48 voices for each note of the scale. The main problem facing the band was how to keep the vocal notes going for an infinite length of time, but Creme suggested that they could get around this issue by using tape loops. Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the 'blip' caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the splice in each loop did not coincide with any of the others. Having created twelve tape loops, one for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then "played", fading up three or four channels at a time to create "chords" for the song's melody. Stewart had put tape across the bottom of each channel so that it was impossible to completely fade down the tracks for each note, resulting in the constant background of vocals heard throughout the song."
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
my "new age" choice



David Hykes and The Harmonic Choir - Lines To A Great Lord

David and the crew settle in to the drone and start circular breathing and around the six minute mark they proceed to engage in "throat singing"

feel those CHAKRAS open!
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
Stockhausen wasn't adverse to a bit of 'throat singing"



Stockhausen - Stimmung ( 1968, "Paris Version" )

The piece is divided into 51 sections, each section introducing a new overtone melody repeated several times. Each female voice leads a new section eight times, each male voice nine times. Some of the other singers gradually have to transform their own material until they have come into identity with the lead singer of the section. When the leader of the section feels that identity is reached, he or she makes a gesture to the singer who will lead the next section, and so on.

In 29 out of the 51 sections, random "magic names" are called out. They are names of gods and goddesses from many cultures. Many different versions of the work can result from the choice of the order of each lead singer and the names they call out.
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mvuent

mvuent

Void Dweller
0bleak said:
I'm sure you probably know this tune from the group they were in a couple years earlier:


"was originally conceived as a bossa nova song played on guitars, but the other two members of the band, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, were not impressed with the idea for the track and it was abandoned (...) Although taken aback by the suggestion, Stewart and the others agreed to try Godley's idea and create "a wall of sound" of vocals that would form the focal point of the record. (...) Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a "choir" of 48 voices for each note of the scale. The main problem facing the band was how to keep the vocal notes going for an infinite length of time, but Creme suggested that they could get around this issue by using tape loops. Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the 'blip' caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the splice in each loop did not coincide with any of the others. Having created twelve tape loops, one for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then "played", fading up three or four channels at a time to create "chords" for the song's melody. Stewart had put tape across the bottom of each channel so that it was impossible to completely fade down the tracks for each note, resulting in the constant background of vocals heard throughout the song."
Click to expand...

somehow they'd never been on my radar at all before reading this. even checked to see if any of their most famous songs generated a flicker of recognition and nope. for better or worse there is something implacably strange and unique about their sound. the studio trickery's no longer state of the art, but it's like the strain to achieve certain effects with the era's once-cutting-edge and now-forgotten tech gives the results a kind of permanent uncanniness.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
mvuent said:
somehow they'd never been on my radar at all before reading this. even checked to see if any of their most famous songs generated a flicker of recognition and nope. for better or worse there is something implacably strange and unique about their sound. the studio trickery's no longer state of the art, but it's like the strain to achieve certain effects with the era's once-cutting-edge and now-forgotten tech gives the results a kind of permanent uncanniness.
Click to expand...
 
mvuent

mvuent

Void Dweller
william_kent said:
Stockhausen wasn't adverse to a bit of 'throat singing"



Stockhausen - Stimmung ( 1968, "Paris Version" )
Click to expand...

part of what i like so much about this one is how it feels like the human voice imitating electronic sound, rather than the other way around. you can hear resonance sweeps, ring modulation, filtered white noise, etc. in the syllables. makes it feel ancient and futuristic at the same time.
 
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