"Rootsy" music which ends up sounding weird/druggy or maybe also 1 percent kitsch

anyone able to recommend more music like this? I am not sure I'll like the rest of Jimmy Scott's stuff as it seems the Badalamenti/Lynch thing that I enjoy. But if I'm wrong let me know.

I love the idea of albums worth of really atmospheric ethereal music where the singer has this great "soul" voice. Don't want any earthiness or authenticity or propriety.

It might be an obvious answer, but Lee Hazelwood I think fits the bill here:

Hasil Adkins

Ilya.

http://www.inmusicwetrust.com/articles/images/63/a03.jpg

julee cruise "the nightingale"

http://www.discogs.com/Julee-Cruise-Floating-Into-The-Night/release/419494

haha already on the Julee Cruise! my flatmates said last night it sounded like a Church choir in rural Ireland=they are WRONG.

david sylvian? (perhaps slightly stretching your definition of a "soul" voice)

"the devil's own"

"maria"

http://www.discogs.com/David-Sylvian-Secrets-Of-The-Beehive/release/81680

Mary Margaret O'Hara?

youtube of ilyas good'un :

is that ilya the one from SD? i saw them a really long time ago and they were on some black heart procession shit

SD ?
nah .. i think Bristol.
the whole album is laid back atmospheric jazzy smoochineess.

I think the Ilya sounds a little too conventional for me, I guess I'm looking for sort of incongruous accidents maybe.

David Sylvian sounding sort of right yeah, I had been listening to Japan lately.

I guess even with that, I'm wondering is there any artist who comes close to the style of the Scott song above? It just seems really unique to me.

(this is often the case with weird backstories behind songs, eg tv series/composer/singer all weirdly coming together...

Weird, druggy roots? I believe this is the record you're looking for. From RobertChristgau.com....

Michael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones
Have Moicy! [Rounder, 1976]
A dynamic trio. Hurley's sleepy LPs for Raccoon flaunted their homemade triviality, while the work of Peter Stampfel (and Steve Weber and the other Rounders) for Prestige and Metromedia and Rounder managed to make music out of chalk scraping a blackboard, or a needle scraping an old 78--quite a feat, but not one I ever wanted to witness daily. This time, however, both forces combine with Fredericks for thirteen homemade, chalky, fit-for-78 songs that renew the concept of American folk music as a bizarre apotheosis of the post-hippie estate. No losers, though--just loadsa laffs, a few tears, some death, some shit, a hamburger, spaghetti, world travel, crime, etc. A+

I hate that record, and I bought it based entirely on Xgau's recommendation.

Tim Buckley, Dolphins:

it seems to me that john fahey/peter walker rural-mystic stuff might be what youre after. michael hurley has some of this for sure, but it strikes me more as just personal weird as opposed to druggy weird, although, sure, have moicy! is fun and weedy.

xpost but tim buckley is JAZZ not ROOTS

I think my use of "rootsy" may be confusing the issue here, I guess I meant that sort of mix of authenticity or classicism with kitsch or tackiness as in the Jimmy Scott video, rather than specifically roots the genre, sorry I should have been more clear.

Apology not accepted. How about Gary Higgins?

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/18642-gary-higgins-red-hash

What's so rootsy about the initial example? It's more jazzy/cabaret to me.

so wait, by "rootsy but weird/druggy," you mean "authentic/classic but kitsch/tacky"?

Can't find "At Last I Am Free" or the opening track to Comicopera on Youtube but here's Robert Wyatt's "Sea Song":

ok because that is like 0% kitsch though!

what about michael nesmith's cosmic country style?

I know my description was a bit confusing, but then the record I posted is kind of across a few normally contradictory bases imo. I do think that Robert Wyatt thing is similar.

Lhasa - Anywhere on this Road:

A Mountain of One - Ride (performed live):

("Freefall" would have been preferable but whatevs)

i see -- no computer sound for me, so im like the deaf leading the vague here :)

(xxpost)

Fleetwood Mac - Big Love (Live):

haha a treat awaits you 69...I think the song at top of thread is like one for the ages

this stuff is great tim, thanks a lot.

haha so you want... balearic?

sorry that was a bad joke.

anyway, i am surprised nobody has mentioned scott walker yet, especially climate of hunter

Ronan you do know The Blue Nile don't you? Or should I be posting youtube links for them?

yeah the stuff Tim recommended is v good tho perhaps doesn't all fit with the Jimmy Scott either...I think I just asked for songs that are like something which is on its own plain...at least I feel it is.

but you know failing that, fuck it I'll listen to anything!

x-post know of them but don't know anything really

haha so you want... balearic?

Oh dear.

(Random thought -- is 'balearic' what people call the quality end of 'yacht rock'? Please note I am not being serious. Entirely.)

I have been jamming this David Sylvian track SO MUCH of late - "Taking The Veil":

some of the stuff in here might be of interest? itt: kinda out there, maybe kinda experimental, maybe kinda pretentious modern r&b

maybe, just maybe:

billy mckenzie "wild and lonely"

"wild is the wind"

"baby"

there's way more. this guy was a genius.

The Blue Nile - The Downtown Lights:

one more from billy mckenzie:

i was also going to suggest a couple of cuts from this album - http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:fzftxq90ldde - but nothing is on youtube, oh well

there's way more. this guy was a genius.

I could go on. (I have, in fact.) Good choices all. And "Taking the Veil" is probably my favorite Sylvian song after all these years, not least because it's such a good album starter.

Talk Talk - April 5th:

Can I get away with posting... Billy Idol's "Eyes Without A Face":

oh yes you can!

i'm not sure I really understand the premise of this thread but fuck that, it's all good stuff

i think patty waters pretty much nails this

try to imagine the terrible slideshow editing is actually lynchian surrealism

that billy idol song is amazing.

this is maybe more kitschy than rootsy

prefab sprout "one of the broken"

so this thread has basically just become "post good songs you like on youtube", I'm okay with this.

that said this patty waters really does sound close to the video above, thanks a lot (what in the name of Jesus is up with the slideshow tho?)

I knew the Billy Idol btw.

Sinead O'Connor - Troy:

ok now i really have no idea what this thread is aiming at!

not that 'troy' isn't amazing

cool! you should check out the rest of patty waters sings

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/540/540491.jpg

can I actually listen to a Sinead O'Connor record?

stina nordenstam - parliament square

Yeah I'm just kinda free associating around any link between ethereal/atmospheric backing music and impassioned vocals.

Ronan you MUST listen to "Troy"!!

tim f making some inspired choices

i'm not sure whether ronan wants the distant, almost dispassionate soulfulness of the jimmy scott track, or the impassioned emotion of 'troy'?

Ronan you MUST listen to "Troy"!!

You have to listen to that whole album, really. (I'm STILL flabbergasted that when there was a C/D thread on Sinead on here and people had made all sorts of choices that I was the first one to mention "Jackie." THAT was an album starter.)

cassie - my house

okay this billy mackenzie...a+

when I started the thread I wanted really screwed up music with that kind of soulful or "classic" feel to it, eg somebody authentic doing something kind of weird/ethereal.

I am enjoying most of the recommendations here, but I am unsure there is any connecting line!

scott walker springs to mind but i can't remember what any of his songs are called...

Ronan, you mean in a Flamingoes "Only Have Eyes For You" kind of way?

beh gibbons & rustin man - funny time of year (live)

I'm wondering if there might be any Nina Simone that fits this whole thing, whatever it might be.

Darker than that Tim I guess. I dunno, is that Scott song just so good that there isn't really stuff like that? I mean I take it for granted you all agree it is the greatest thing ever!

yeah i was definitely thinking of the darker, sparser end of nina simone...'wild is the wind', maybe 'pirate jenny'? and diamanda galás when she's being restrained - 'time' off the last album would be ideal but youtube isn't providing

and yeah i hadn't heard the scott track until i clicked this thread but it's pretty amazing

Sorry, Flamingos obv. But I think the difficulty is that all that Lynch/Badalamenti stuff is like an imaginary genre connecting those co-ordinates between plush soul and dark ethereality, so (and I don't mean this in a critical way at all), it's kinda like searching for a whole genre of music that reminds you of Burial or The Bug or etc. Ha ha speaking of which how about DJ Shadow's "The War Song":

It all helps I was listening to the original Twin Peaks soundtrack yesterday and thinking Scott's cameo in the show. What a performance.

yes this is exactly the problem, it's an imaginary genre. I think that's what's so good about it, it feels like something that shouldn't exist. for some reason I am unsure if Nina Simone will be right, I think it's Badalamenti's music that is the big problem here, it's like ketamine soul or something.

x-post to Ned, yeah it is truly incredible, I watched TP for the first time in its entirety in the last 2 weeks and was just blown away by that in the finale, like instantly knowing it'd be one of those records I play every night for several years.

(Along with this track below, which I think I heard about 2 years ago)

This also seems appropriate somehow - Wu-Tang Clan's "Babies":

Diamanda Galás - Gloomy Sunday

maybe a little too grim/intense?

I love the idea of albums worth of really atmospheric ethereal music where the singer has this great "soul" voice. Don't want any earthiness or authenticity or propriety.

this description makes me think of john martyn

like hole in the rain specifically

actually re-reading the thread scratch that, i think i misunderstood what you meant by "rootsy" and "soul"

psychspawgle no, that's PERFECT, almost exactly.

maybe a key word I was missing was androgyny! (jesus that diamanda galas is amazing tho, really appreciate it)

Goodbye Horses?

here's the associates version, bit more upbeat but billy mckenzie just soars on this shit

scott walker - jesse

maybe a little more 'inland empire' than 'twin peaks'

is there any more Diamanda Galas stuff worth hearing? I looked around Youtube and some of it seemed to veer from sad and serious to actually kinda unintentionally funny and serious.

yeah definitely do not judge galas by her youtube prowess. the album she released last year is great, as someone touched on upthread

The first track reminded me of this...

no singing though.

this thread restored my faith in the democratic interpersonalgalactic might of ILM

Interesting thread, I guess, but could somebody please explain what "soul" music the stuff being mentioned here is supposed to sound like? It's like you're all speaking another language or something.

I mean, it's wonderful if you like Diamanda Galas or Julee Cruise etc. (I don't, who cares), but how they have anything at all to do with soul is beyond my comprehension. (About the only nomination that makes any sense at all in that light is Lex's Cassie one. And I dunno, maybe Billy Idol if you consider Jim Morrison a soul singer.)

Jimmy Scott doesn't sound like soul? Though yeah Chuck this thread went way off base due to my vague explanation of what I wanted and other people just posting shit they think I might like I guess, based on the fact I've been posting here for however long and people prob can guess other shit I might like.

Anyway can you recommend something like the track I started the thread with?

Nah, I wouldn't call that Jimmy Scott track soul, either. "Show blues," maybe? It definitely sounds like a pre-Sam Cooke vocal style to me, no matter what you call it. I really don't like it much. Makes me impatient, and I don't hear the sparseness building tension or ominousness the way I gather it's supposed to.

But that's just me. Anyway, here's a track that comes to mind that maybe pulls off, for me, what you're looking for here. (More likely, I'm just not moved by the kind of stuff you're looking for):

For what it's worth (and not that it matters), I'm not sure I get your use of "rootsy," either (which is usually used to refer to stuff that sounds like back-roads country or blues or folk from several decades ago, none of which seem to apply here -- even in Scott's case; he just seems way too urbane), but at least that word's vague in the first place.

I dunno, though...Chet Baker? Or Julie London maybe?

jesus I am kinda laughing at Chuck posting me house records on a thread where I post asking for non-house music after about 6 years of listening to nothing else.

I think my use of "rootsy" threw things the wrong way, except that Tim and Psychspawgle seemed to understand exactly what I meant and pick tracks accordingly so......maybe not so wrong.

yeah by 'rootsy' i thought u meant country or blues or something. have u heard tim buckley's 'song for the siren'. a awesome song. also used to good use in Lynch's 'Lost Highway'.

tbh i've still no idea what you meant ronan, diamanda galas crossed my mind early on in the thread but it didn't sound like you were after that at all. really though i've no idea what kind of vocals you like!

i didn't think ronan meant for "soul voice" to be taken literally. it's not that long a stretch to comprehend why some would interpret david sylvian's or billy mckenzie's voice as soulful is it?