Recommend me: Weird-Voiced Female Singers

Melissa Arpin-Duimstra does a nice hissing gas shoegaze coo with lovesliescrushing who out-cocteau the cocteaus by sounding more like thomas köner goes pop. really can't listen to liz fraser these days - often sings flat - embarrassing lyrics & cheap ethno-forgeries, honestly think alison goldfrapp is a better vocal technician. also julee cruise - want to hear her doing shoegaze? pluramon's "dreams top rock" & the one after deserve attention.

The point at which "weird-voiced female singers" or even "distinctive female singers" (because, honestly, what on earth is weird about Kristin Hersch's voice? Or Charlotte Marionneau's?) becomes just "recognisable female singers, let us list them."

Anyway, if we're just doing distinct, I'd like to add Alison Shaw of Cranes.

i don't really understand what is meant by weird so will go along with distinctive instead just so i can recommend romica puceanu

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

also idjah hadidjah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJDd49R6ZIU

what on earth is weird about Kristin Hersch's voice?

To be honest I have no use for Throwing Muses beyond House Tornado so maybe I have a different impression of them to everyone else, but certainly Hersh used her voice in a very idiosyncratic way on some of those early tracks. Thinking of the epiglottal garglings on Call Me, the way she jumps all over the scales on those staccato bits of America (She Can't Say No) and generally the way she would switch into different modes of singing within the same song, something very Monk-like about that.

Anna-Lisa Ingemansson

Huh. I guess that Hersch's voice is so familiar to me that I've stopped even thinking of it as strange in any way, but I guess I see your point.

not sure if annisette's voice is weird enough for this thread but i love her anyway. she sounds like a more tuneful yoko to me sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYX7ZdPOCpg

I wholeheartedly second Judee Sill, although I've always found her voice to be beautiful in its plainness. Wouldn't call it "weird" in itself really, but certainly atypical from the flourish we're accustomed to hearing from female vocalists.

I'd add: Kath Bloom, both members of CocoRosie, and I'm gonna go ahead and throw Antony Hegarty on this list.

I was thinking of adding Little Jimmy Scott cos he does sound androgynous enough to be a female singer.

& finding it very odd that Kristen Hersh's vocals on the Throwing Muses track I was listening to yesterday might not be viewed as odd. Certainly not the straightest sounding thing i could think of .

Might actually find Shirley Collins's voice odd in its lack of affectedness though.

Well, I dunno. This thread is really just hammering home the concept that there is such a much narrower range for what is considered a "normal" female voice. Or maybe people have higher expectations of "perfection" or accomplishment from a female singer in a way that male singers are expected to have quirks or idiosyncrasies which would be unacceptable in a woman?

Wondered that about the two that I posted (I don't think either are 'weird sounding' - and their 'distinctiveness' is perhaps contingent on how familiar you are with music from those places in those genres)

caveat: I'm not all that big on quirks or idiosyncrasies in vocalists

Well, the OP said he liked unusual male voices but wasn't well informed on unusual female voices. I think this thread is just a response to that request for information, really.

xp

Anne Briggs

sidsel endresen - seek her albums with humcrush & helge stein which are bizarre smoky abstract vocalese - usually (on other albums) she's working a more conservative beth gibbons/ diana krall thing but she weirds it up a treat when she wants to.

Just came here to post about the new Sidsel Endresen and Stian Westerhus album, Didymoi Dreams. Definitely on the vocalese/extended technique side of things, but still very human and inviting. It's on Spotify.

also if you don't know les rita mitsouko you need to check them for catherine ringer's spine tinglingly screechy punk-chansonrie. i'd recommend "bestov" & "marc & robert" .

Never really thought of Catherine Ringer in this connection, most of the time she's not far from a typical post-punk singer (would you say David Byrne is a weird-voiced male singer?). But then with a song like Le Petit Train I see where you're coming from.

recent Marianne Faithful, at least based on that Metallica song

Marianne Faithfull has released seven albums and collaborated with Daniel Lanois, Jon Brion, Hal Willner, Blur and Damon Albarn separately, Beck, Billy Corgan, Etienne Daho, Pulp and Jarvis Cocker (repeatedly) separately, Nick Cave (repeatedly) and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds separately, PJ Harvey, Cat Power, the McGarrigle sisters, Keith Richards, Antony, Rufus, Teddy Thompson and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since that "recent" Metallica song.

This thread is really just hammering home the concept that there is such a much narrower range for what is considered a "normal" female voice.

This is a request-for-recommendations thread, not a thinly conceiled manifesto.

Yma Sumac OWNS

rebecca black

Yoko kinda maybe owns this thread. First Plastic Ono Band album is basically "What if the Beatles survived into the 70s and made a krautrock album?"

Scout Niblett, maybe?

Minnie Riperton
Melanie Safka
Mae Questel

Yolandi Visser

Catherine Jauniaux from Aksak Maboul (her solo record from the early 80s is great)
Anna Nacher from Atman/Magic Carpathians

fell like posting some Ewa Demarczyk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2RusSu-IY

goosebumps. this performance is amazing beyond words.

Robin Holcomb

Shelley Hirsch

urszula dudziak
flora purim

her voice isn't weird so much as it is a powerful deep bellow
one to watch for sure
https://circuitdesyeux.bandcamp.com/