I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to start yet another music thread but the other thread about good cover songs got me thinking about a bunch of instrumentals I really enjoy. Just to define that to narrow it down, I’m talking about vocal-free music (or music with small amounts of sampled speech) by musicians who primarily do vocal works.
My two that I had on my mind are this one, by Frank Tovey, AKA Fad Gadget, a criminally under-appreciated musician:
…and this one, by David Bowie, who released a compilation of much of his instrumental work called All Saints in 2001:
There was a band from here in Melbourne that were active in the late 90’s and early 00’s that I used to love going to see live. I don’t know how “big” they ever made it, I know they toured around Australia, played some of the festivals here, and I think they may have made it over to America once? I saw them a whole bunch of times playing at pubs and music venues around this city.
Anyway, the band was called Pre_Shrunk, and they were a three-piece comprised of drums and two bass guitars. I was always impressed by the sounds that they managed to wrangle out of those bass! They would always finish a gig with one particular song of theirs, titled Accelerate. Each time they played it would be a bit different, running anywhere from about 8 minutes to 12 or 15 minutes long. The whole song only has four lines of lyrics with eight words total in it, so it is pushing the boundary of the criterion listed for this thread… but I’m going to suggest that is largely the same as only having a small amount of vocal sample.
It is quite difficult to find a good, clean recording of one of the live performances, but as an example:
@Karasu really starting the show with a showstopper putting Bowie on here! Low and Hunky Dory alternate as my favorite Bowie albums, but the instrumental tracks on the former really made a huge impression on me–they elicit the same feelings as sci-fi movie scores like Tron or Vangelis’s work.
I’m still brainstorming, but one I would definitely put forward is an early Geotic (alias of Will Wiesenfeld/Baths) album Mend. The song structure consists of very short repeated lo-fi snippets so its not for everyone, but it puts me in a serene trance-like state
Always felt this album deserved more attention than it ever got, Zutzut Placas EP. Interesting mix of indigenous instruments and more modern electronic sounds. Part of the NAAFI collective of musicians from Mexico City, who do a lot of club remixes, and instrumental electronic music as well.
I was wondering if I should post this in this thread or the Heavy Music thread, but I figured there is possibly more chance of people giving it a listen if I post here:
Melodic Doom / Death metal band Swallow the Sun, from Finland, have a new album due out in November of this year. There will be a 2nd disc released alongside the album which are instrumental versions of the songs, re-scored for a trio of Violin, Viola, and Cello. These versions were performed in and recorded in a huge cathedral in Finland.
In the lead up to the album’s release, their label are posting these instrumental versions on Youtube. Here’s the first track they released, “Moonflowers Bloom In Misery” performed by Trio NOX at Sipoo Church, Finland:
(ah dang, it has the thing where you need to click through)
