·:*¨༺ ♱🦢♱🐁·*Girls in the avant-guard:
Some of my favourite experimental (vocally or production wise) albums by female artists ·* 🪙
1. Visions - Grimes (2012)
2. Nina Hagen Band - Nina Hagen, Spliff (1978)
3. Vespertine - Björk (2001)
4. Press Color - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
1. I think everyone who knows Grimes has listened to this album, and everyone who has listened to this album knows how it was made. So I’ll just attach a quote of Grimes talking about the album’s main influences:
“When I was making it, I was listening to a lot of Outkast, Dungeon Family, New Edition, TLC, Michael Jackson, and Mariah Carey. And then a lot of Burial, Black Dice, Aphex Twin, and Nine Inch Nails. I’m into the really caustic beats, the kind of sharp drum and bass kind of stuff. Really nice vocals too, with lots of tight harmonies at the same time.” [Grimes, Vulture, interview by Bryan Hood]
2. Known as "The Godmother of German Punk", she was also opera-trained, and that makes for some absolutely CRAZY singing, effortlessly switching from one style to another. Her music is extremely diversified, gender-bending, raw and theatrical, always looking for new possible combinations. Where else could you find reggae yodel!?!? || if you like her you should also check out Klaus Nomi.
3. I don’t think that Björk needs any introduction, so I’m gonna talk about this one album specifically. Described by Björk as her most “romantic” album, her “winter-wonderland”, Vespertine presents an ethereal paradise, a quiet place in which “peace and salvation” could be found. This atmosphere is evoked through the use of instruments like the celesta and the glockenspiel, the introduction of a choir, and very light percussions, like finger tapping. [check out the podcast “Björk: Sonic Symbolism]
4. Another artist that resides within multiple genres, Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a french musician, songwriter and entrepreneur, active in late-70s New York, right when punk started coming to the US (where she met and later collaborated with Patti Smith). She experimented with punk, electronic, psychedelia; she was also a poet and a painter.