One instrument makes the difference

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I just listened to a CD by an Australian band called The Clogs. Instrumental chamber music slash post-rock with guitar and violin, sort of like the Rachel's, only not as dreary as that suggests. What made it sound fresh was a bassoon, which I don't hear much in pop music, especially from a regular band member. For all I know, once the novelty wears off, it'll sound like new age dreck. But right now, it has me asking what other cases come to mind where a single unusual instrument gives a band, or an album, song, whatever, a different sound.

All I come up with is the Jew's harp on Leonard Cohen's second album.

*boingggg*

Others?

― Curt, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I should add, excluding unusual instruments of the vocal kind....

― Curt, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Keyboards on most Black Metal albums.

― Kodanshi, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still have a soft spot for the oboe solo on REM's Nightswimming... lifts the song into the realms of the sublime for me. Either that or the headbanging clarinet bits on a lot of the Monsoon Bassoon's stuff.

― Matt D'Cruz, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There are great bassoon and bass flute solos on Peter Apfelbaum's first album. There's also a bassoon on Steve Hillage's Fish Rising, though that's a hit-or-miss CD compared with Gong, etc.

A lot of bands have an unusual instrument as their schtick, really.

Macha has their dulcimer.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have banjo, harmonica and a drum machine -- maybe more of an unusual combination than an unusual instrument.

Optiganally Yours -- you know what.

VU and the viola.

Cerberus Shoal used to use an oud, as well as a bass trumpet and wooden flutes.

Morphine, bari sax and 2-string bass.

English horn and/or oboe on certain tracks helped Carla Bley's Night-Glo album to have a rather interesting flavor.

Jaco Pastorius, among others, made heavy use of the steel drum work of Othello Molineaux.

― Phil, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Macha, of course! Is that a dulcimer or a piece of Indonesian percussion or both? All I know is "Nipplegong" sound cool for a song name.

― Curt, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cor anglais on Wire's 154, forget the track.

There is a track scored for typewriters and electric concrete on Swells Maps second LP, Jane in Occupied Europe...

― mark s, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is Brian Eno regarded as an instrument? He should be.

― Keiko, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nothing would make Eno happier than to be regarded as a piece of furniture. So, a grand piano perhaps?

― Curt, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Roxy Fucking Music. Clarinet on "Ladytron", Oboe "Strictly Confidential", percussion on "Sunset", whatever was on "Triptych". And violin was put on "Out of the Blue" and made to sound like something never heard. This was the bit about Roxy Music that all the imitators miss.

― dave q, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think I can prompt you, Mark S. It's " A Mutual Friend" with the Cor Anglais played by one Joan Whiting.

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The best track (to my mind) on Fantastic Plastic Machine's album 'Luxury' is an instrumental with extended bassoon workout. That instrument really (ba)roques!

― Momus, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thirteenth Floor Elevators-electric autoharp. Though with Roky's voice, it would have sounded "fresh" regardless.

― Arthur, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bassoon? Is that all you sad indie bastards can come up with? Try listening to more than one sort of music the next time your mummy lets you fraternise with your public school chums.

― Jon, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I note, of course, that you provide no choice yourself, which leads me to conclude that you don't even have the imagination to think of an example, and therefore can only make fun. Typical.

For a recent instance, I will go with Tool's "Mantra," in which a cat is played.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like a good French horn or cello. Yea, I'm hip.

― Lindsey B, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jethro Tull and that goddamn flute.

― Mark M, Wednesday, 22 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Prince was quite good at this kind of thing--acoustic guitar on "Forever in My Life," steel drum on "New Position," LACK OF a bassline on "When Doves Cry." (Does that count? I think it should.)

― M. Matos, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Roxy Music - agree - bass brass instruments I also think sound cool, Seeds' Future uses tuba instead of bass. It's all true - some bands I didn't even like that much I liked the songs with different instruments on them, like Bressa Creeting Cake sounds good because of xylophone and Neutral Milk Hotel I didn't like so much personally except the song that was all brass instruments ...

― maryann, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh and I forgot, here I have to mention, NZ's best current musician Matt Middleton/Crude, who uses clarinet and saxophone a lot. It's really weird, to everyone who lives here, that overseas people have heard of the Dead C, and not Matt/Crude.

― maryann, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

on the other hand, i think it can be too studied when the musician/s make the whole thing about 'weird instruments', like Morphine or The Dirty Three, too much emphasis on 'it doesn't matter if our songs are actually corny, superficially they appear not to be because we prioritise different instruments.' I like the more complicated examples, like the Prince ones mentioned.

― maryann, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Morphine were a terrific band! What on earth is "weird" about drums, bass, and a baritone sax? I admit that their occasional forays into beatnik territory was a bit corny, but for the most part they wrote great songs.

― Mark M, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think the Dirty Three are corny either. Sentimental maybe, but I've never been under the impression that the violin got them out of that.

― Josh, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yeah, the dirty three are good without the violin. i mean i'm not saying that to be perverse, i like it till that part ok.

― maryann, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

13^th Floor Elevators? I would have mentioned their jug which sounded like a gobbling turkey!

― Kodanshi, Sunday, 26 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that sound that i think simon reynolds calls the oscillator riff, which totally makes DJ's Unite's DJ's Unite. without that sound, this record would be nothing.

― gareth, Tuesday, 28 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eight months pass...

the trumpet in the pale fountains' 'just a girl'. not that it's unusual, but the way it sounds is so much different from the way it sounds in songs these days by indie bands that use lots of instruments.

― youn, Monday, 27 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The most shocking appearance of a trumpet is at the end of Tom Waits' Burma Shave. And there was a punk band I saw a couple of times with a trumpet, called something like Gardez Darkz. The trumpeter was the one with a dad with a van, as I recall.

― Martin Skidmore, Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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