Vocal-Oriented Electronic Music

I think this might actually be where the majority of my *favourite* music lies. So please find me some more!

I do enjoy purely electronic or purely instrumental music, but there is still something inherently appealing about the sound and tone of the human voice that I find irresistible. So find me those artists and producers who work within electronic music, but who have excellent vocal technique. i.e. artists who actually do both. So I'm not talking about electronic artists who drop in vocal samples or occasionally get in guest singers. I'm talking about artists for whom vocals and the treatment thereof are as integral to the music as the synths and sequencers. (And both vocals and synths are of excellent quality.)

I'll start off with a couple of examples of what I mean (I'm at home, so I can't get YouTube, but I'll look them up at work tomorrow.)

Stuff like:

School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms

Thom Yorke - The Eraser

Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain, Black Cherry

Capitol K - Island Row, Nomad Junk

Medicine - The Mechanical Forces of Love (not the early shoegaze stuff, though I also love that - the later, completely electronic work)

Suggest more music in this vein that I might like.

Opinions seem divided, but I'd say Tim Exile's recent stuff. 'Listening Tree' was an ace album, along with the free 'The Finger' EP. 'Nuisance Gabbaret' was a good fun too. Good shout with School Of Seven Bells. You may also like A Cloud MIreya as well, although that's not really electronic music.

Bjork

lady gaga

david guetta

Yeah, ha ha, goes without saying that Bjork kind of owns this thread.

Also, forgot - The Knife and moreso Fever Ray is also on the same map.

But really looking for less well known stuff that I might not have heard yet.

Thanks for the suggestions, Caretstik, I've heard Tim Exile's name tossed around, will try and have a listen.

You'll need "Medulla" by Bjork, sounds like it's exactly what you're after.

Then there's always some good old synth pop/punk (early Human League, early OMD (Dazzleships is an essential album), Depeche Mode, maybe even Yazoo?).

I'll second tim exile - listening tree. also, max tundra's last two albums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g176PJXKsU0

this is more new-wavey, and the singer's technique is shite but i don't give a fuck

iamamiwhoami, whoever that is

Repeat: looking for newer stuff, within the past 5, 10 years or so, rather than stuff that's in the canon.

Another example of the sort of stuff I'm thinking of:

Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel (I think that's the title?)

I've been enjoying Nite Jewel lately. Lo-fi and rather dreamy, although the vocals may be an acquired taste.

I really really wanted to like Nite Jewel, but it was just a bit too lo-fi for me perhaps.

However, I love stuff like Telepathe and Phantogram who do very similar kinds of stuff.

(Though that might be drifting off into "chillwave" whatever the hell that's supposed to be... which isn't really the direction I'd like to go.)

  On 2/14/2010 at 6:01 PM, Lube Saibot said:

iamamiwhoami, whoever that is

YES YES YES i am officially obsessed with this now

  On 2/14/2010 at 6:37 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 2/14/2010 at 6:01 PM, Lube Saibot said:

iamamiwhoami, whoever that is

 

 

 

YES YES YES i am officially obsessed with this now

But so far none of the clips have had recognisable voices!

I mean, this is kinda what I'm afraid of - that the backing and production and setting is fantastic, but it really will be down to who is actually doing the singing and how they handle it.

One of the things I really liked about Goldfrapp and Ladytron (if indeed it is the Xtina stuff produced by them) was the vocal treatment of those bands, both of which were very distinctive and worked so that the singers' vocal quality and the music enhanced one another. If those iamami tracks turn out to have some "big"-voiced singer with melisma all over the place then I don't know if it'll work with the very gentle, close, intimate, organic feel of those backing tracks.

If you have a "big"-voice, then it requires quite a different treatment - think of the way that Giorgio Moroder created those massive tracks around Donna Summer's voice, giving her massive voice space to shine.

It is quite an art, to get production and voice to match - and that's the art I'd like to explore on this thread.

  On 2/14/2010 at 7:15 PM, Masonic Boom said:

  On 2/14/2010 at 6:37 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 2/14/2010 at 6:01 PM, Lube Saibot said:

iamamiwhoami, whoever that is

 

 

 

YES YES YES i am officially obsessed with this now

 

But so far none of the clips have had recognisable voices!

 

I mean, this is kinda what I'm afraid of - that the backing and production and setting is fantastic, but it really will be down to who is actually doing the singing and how they handle it.

 

One of the things I really liked about Goldfrapp and Ladytron (if indeed it is the Xtina stuff produced by them) was the vocal treatment of those bands, both of which were very distinctive and worked so that the singers' vocal quality and the music enhanced one another. If those iamami tracks turn out to have some "big"-voiced singer with melisma all over the place then I don't know if it'll work with the very gentle, close, intimate, organic feel of those backing tracks.

 

If you have a "big"-voice, then it requires quite a different treatment - think of the way that Giorgio Moroder created those massive tracks around Donna Summer's voice, giving her massive voice space to shine.

 

It is quite an art, to get production and voice to match - and that's the art I'd like to explore on this thread.

there are vocals in it.

it is vocal-oriented electronic music.

you are a child.

If the vocals are so clear and distinct then how come there's still such a controversy about who it is singing them?

The whole tease is that you can hear the arrangements but not the singer. I like when I'm hearing, but I reserve judgement until I can clearly hear enough of the vocals to get a sense of them.

Anyway, it's been discussed to death and there really isn't any point in including an artist of which none of us have heard more than 15 second clips.

I'm generally not a fan of vocal-oriented electronic music. I love samples though. But to comment on those already mentioned, I do like The Knife and Tim Exile. Max Tundra is alright, haven't gotten to the point of really liking his stuff, haven't spent enough time with it really.

this is sort of off topic but couldnt someone playing an electric guitar be considered electronic music?

  On 2/14/2010 at 9:09 PM, Z_B_Z said:

this is sort of off topic but couldnt someone playing an electric guitar be considered electronic music?

Depends on the treatment of it. A guitar plugged straight into an amp is not electronic music. But when guitar becomes so highly processed and treated that most of the signal is post-processing (either analogue or digital) electronics then I'm rather willing to entertain the idea.

I mean, guitar players like Kevin Shields (MBV), Benjamin Curtis (SVIIB), Emma Anderson (Lush) - their music would not be the same without electronics.

However, that's not really what this thread is about. It's about treatment of vocals within electronic music.

plz stop to be discriminating against musicians who don't sing, thx.

Some others I just thought of:

Meat Beat Manifesto

Underworld (though I gave up after Beaucoup Fish)

Jamie Lidell (really only like his debut and his work with...

Super_Collider

MC 900 Ft Jesus

Two Lone Swordsmen (From the Double Gone Chapel is quite good)

Underworld! yeah, they are absolutely fantastic at this kind of thing, to the point where I wonder how the music is made - like, does the vocalist chant to the electronics, or is the electronics built around the rhythm of his vocalisations. They are really, really clever the way it all mixes together, and you cannot separate the music and the vocalisations - even though he's not a particularly technically adept singer, it's really well done.

stereolab

breakbeat era