S: Songs with Haunting, Droney, Dead-eyed Vocal Harmonizing

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ala:

Nico - "My Only Child"
The Zombies - "Changes"
Steeleye Span - "Gaudete"

I love it when these songs pass my way but I have no idea where to find more. You can destroy too I suppose.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Sunday, 14 January 2007 21:39 (nineteen years ago)

good question!!!

i love haunting, droney, dead-eyed vocal harmonizing. in fact, it's something i experiment with a lot these days. actually, i'm about to take a refreshing shower and hermit in my studio doing just that.

umm...

i can't quite think of one right now. i don't know any of the songs you mention, perhaps i should check them out

― Surmounter (rra123), Sunday, 14 January 2007 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

'Down where the Drunkards Roll ' by Richard and Linda Thompson has a lovely droney harmony by Richard - might be the kind of thing you mean?

― sonofstan (sonofstan), Sunday, 14 January 2007 22:36 (nineteen years ago)

"Dead-eyed Vocal"

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 14 January 2007 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

I thought this would be a Ramzi thread.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Sunday, 14 January 2007 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

xpost - point taken, on a technicality. maybe. no, never mind.
xxpost - it's getting there, harmony's not quite as detached as what I'm talking about, occupies the same middle area as maybe The Halo Bender's "Lonesome Sundown". good song though!

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

dead-eyed vocal = eyepatch singer = you know who

― bobby bedelia (van dover), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

:-) i know it struck a chord over here (this thread)

― Surmounter (rra123), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

"Creole Love Call" - The Comedian Harmonists

― Turangalila (Salvador), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:38 (nineteen years ago)

forgot maybe the grandaddy of this: Beach Boys' "In My Room", though it's a bit sunnier and sentimentalist than the previous examples

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

Rainywood's Kate Wolf cover, "Cornflower Blue" (an amazing song by the way) fits this description

― Spine Swine (Roger Fidelity), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

there are a lot of really looooooooooooooooong notes that Alan and Mimi hold on the Low album "The Curtain Hits the Cast" in a really stark manner that might count as an example of this

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Sunday, 14 January 2007 23:52 (nineteen years ago)

Skip Spence's "Grey / Afro," "All Come to Meet Her," "Diana," and "War in Peace."

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Monday, 15 January 2007 07:05 (nineteen years ago)

TRAFFIC - RAINMAKER

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 15 January 2007 07:37 (nineteen years ago)

Pentangle - Lyke-Wake Dirge

― Ghost Bear Junior High Attendance Party (Ghost Bear Junior High Attenda), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

The Byrds, "If You're Gone"

― David Bachyrycz (David Bachyrycz), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:21 (nineteen years ago)

Pentangle - Lyke-Wake Dirge

Great call.

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

Ummm, Stooges, "We Will Fall", that sort of thing?

― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:44 (nineteen years ago)

Low's "Pissing"?

― you win again, gravity! (tissp), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

what little I've heard by X makes me think they belong in this thread. also, most of Cex's Actual Fucking album.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Monday, 15 January 2007 18:39 (nineteen years ago)

Charalambides? not necessarily harmonizing.

― Rebel.yell.For.Internet.cakes (nordicskilla), Monday, 15 January 2007 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure I even understand what we're searching but the song that immediately came to my mind was Yo La Tengo - "Everyday".

― Sir Echo (Sir Echo), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

Oooh. The Adversary by Crime & The City Solution

― Bobby Peru (Bobby Peru), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 00:17 (nineteen years ago)

David Bowie - "Fashion"

Actually, there's probably a few Bowie cuts, although they might be closer to "zombie chorus" than what you're looking for. Something off of Station to Station, maybe? "Chant..." from Diamond Dogs? Is there any actual harmonizing on "Warszawa," or is it just one of Eno's filters?

― Hideous Lump (Hideous Lump), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 03:22 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

I'm not totally clear on what qualifies as HDDEVH, but these songs all feature the sort of flattened, chant-like harmonies that tend to give me chills. this trick is more common in choral music than in pop music, and some of my examples show the latter imitating the former for atmospheric effect.

The Beach Boys - water chant (a Smile-era recording best known as the wordless vocal section that plays over ocean sound effects about a minute and a half into "Cool Cool Water")
Vainica Doble - Roberto Querido
Aislers Set - Emotional Levy
The Zombies - Smokey Day
The Mamas & The Papas - Strange Young Girls
This Mortal Coil - I Come and Stand at Every Door
The Ballroom - Love's Fatal Way
The Millennium - The Island; Karmic Dream Sequence #1
Emmanuelle Parrenin - Maison Rose; Liturgie
Bob Drake - Your Visit To The Shunned Country
The Watson Family - The Faithful Soldier
Virginia Astley - Sanctus
Shelleyan Orphan - Melody of Birth
The Trees Community - Psalm 46
The Byrds - THEY DID THIS A LOT

― the loneliness of the dexys midnight runner (unregistered), Friday, 4 February 2011 01:51 (fourteen years ago)

...and "O Superman"

― the loneliness of the dexys midnight runner (unregistered), Friday, 4 February 2011 01:58 (fourteen years ago)

quite a lot of bluegrass is good for this.
maybe not exactly deadeyed, but some quite flat, affectless, but beautiful harmonizing....

― m0stlyClean, Friday, 4 February 2011 02:04 (fourteen years ago)

bluegrass is generally too jaunty and melodic (even when the mood is dour) to fit the description, though there are exceptions. the Stanley Brothers' "Death Is Only a Dream" comes to mind, but they were more of an old-time string band than a bluegrass group when they recorded it very early in their career.

― the loneliness of the dexys midnight runner (unregistered), Friday, 4 February 2011 02:43 (fourteen years ago)

Yeah, that's the type of thing i was thinking of.
I guess that spooky oldtime mountain music can be haunting, deadeyed and harmonic, but it's not really that droney.....

― m0stlyClean, Friday, 4 February 2011 02:56 (fourteen years ago)

The first thing that comes to mind for me - and Im not sure im on the right track - is "Beeching Report" by I like Trains.

― Cyclone Yazoo (Trayce), Friday, 4 February 2011 03:06 (fourteen years ago)

on first listen, that iliketrains song gives me the creeps.

― the loneliness of the dexys midnight runner (unregistered), Friday, 4 February 2011 08:01 (fourteen years ago)

Its morbid innit? I listened to it on repeat for an hour once and I think I went a bit nutty.

― Cyclone Yazoo (Trayce), Friday, 4 February 2011 08:36 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snJ8aCAub5I

― Y Kant Torres Red (Noodle Vague), Friday, 4 February 2011 09:46 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUA7Ub1IXQ

― philippe is standing on it (MaresNest), Friday, 4 February 2011 09:59 (fourteen years ago)

I think Shirley Collins fits the bill quite nicely here. Her vocals are chilly, trapped by history, walking through frozen English meadows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7oUFcRGaAE

― ban this sick stunt (anagram), Friday, 4 February 2011 10:03 (fourteen years ago)

Chantilly Codex -- A medieval music thread

― meisenfek, Friday, 4 February 2011 13:00 (fourteen years ago)

five years pass...

The Gist - Light Aircraft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbQ_K7saUCw

― hippie lady from california who loves that god (unregistered), Sunday, 10 July 2016 16:09 (nine years ago)

Peter Blegvad - Irma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wn-qyDlcPY

Most unsettling

― Hideous Lump, Sunday, 10 July 2016 20:12 (nine years ago)

Plantains covering Donna Summer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DomLXOiLRCY

― Lee626, Monday, 11 July 2016 03:06 (nine years ago)

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