ISO Alternative Choral Music

September 2, 2023 9:11 AM

I love choral music, but especially the non-traditional (in sound or subject) works... Think Anthony Braxton's GTM (Syntax) series, "Double Trouble" from the third Harry Potter movie, "Gather Up" by Matt Berry, and "Frontier" by Holly Herndon. (And even "The Poet and the Pendulum," despite the singer being, essentially, a solo chorister—it still fits the vibe I'm going for.) Are there other artists/albums/songs that you can recommend in the same vein?

I'll note that I have a large collection of traditional (mainly Catholic) choir music, Sacred Harp, and other vocal music. But I really enjoy when someone takes the seed of that and either removes the religious aspect, or (especially in the case of Holly Herndon) uses it to build an entirely new sound that still evokes the feel of (Western) sacred vocal music.

As some counterpoints to the works above: Björk's Medúlla is definitely non-traditional vocal music (and I love that album), but I think it pulls too far away from the choir sound... On the other hand, something like "O Fortuna" is a great choral piece, but (maybe because of how overplayed it is, or that it's entirely in Latin) it feels too traditional. And to go beyond traditional choirs—I also love the sound of spirituals from (primarily) the American South (lots of Alan Lomax recordings), but (like Medúlla, just in different direction) that strays too far from "choir" to fit this specific musical itch that I'm trying to scratch.

posted by boisterousBluebird to Media & Arts (20 answers total)

Best answer: Not quite sure if this fits what you're after, but maybe Just (After Song of Songs) by David Lang? I found it because it was sampled in Lips by The xx.
posted by sigmagalator at 10:04 AM on September 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Braxton seems to have something in common with the minimalist family.
See: Philip Glass - geometry of circles

Steve Reich, Tehillim
Ligeti, Aventures

"Double Trouble" is basically cribbed from the early 20th century British tradition.
Richard Rodney Bennet also drew on that tradition for his soundtrack to Gormenghast soundtrack (BBC, 2000)
Only some of the soundtrack is choral, but I think it has what you're looking for.

See also: Benjamin Britten, Hymn to St Cecilia (about a saint, but really it's about music not religion. Words by Auden, who loved Britten and was teasing him poetically)

Holly Herndon's Frontier draws on Slavic choral music, in particular Bulgarian women's choir.
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares

Veryovka Ukrainian Folk Choir, Tuman yarom (Mist in the Valley)

(men's voices) Rustavi Choir of Georgia, Chakrulo

And, just because I like it:
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Heyr þú oss himnum á
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:17 AM on September 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: sigmagalator, that's amazing! Closer to parts of Anthony Braxton's work than the others, but yeah--I'm definitely saving that one. Thank you!
posted by boisterousBluebird at 10:18 AM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: You might be really into Caroline Shaw, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer.
Her best-known movement from "Partita" what won the prize
ABBA cover
posted by daisystomper at 10:18 AM on September 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Pallas Athena: I haven't had time to fully explore your examples, but I can already tell that they're perfect and give me a better understanding of what type of music I'm looking for... "Aventures," in particular, hits exactly the vibe I get from Anthony Braxton, and is surprising in a really delightful way (in the few minutes I've listened to so far).

Gormenghast and that Britten piece: yes, definitely. I can see that thread, and am going to continue pulling on it; Matt Berry's similarity makes sense as well, given that he's British and would presumably pull from the same tradition...

And the folk choirs: I don't know why I didn't make this connection before, but I've been a fan of Warsaw Village Band for a while, and there's a path from them (on the folk side) through the Slavic choral music, down to Holly Herndon... I guess missing that middle piece prevented me from seeing the similarity between Warsaw and Holly; now that I have it, I can more fully explore that sound.

("Heyr þú oss himnum á" is also lovely... That goes in my "traditional" box, but I'm very glad to have been introduced to it.)
posted by boisterousBluebird at 10:55 AM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: daisystomper: I am apparently absolutely into Caroline Shaw... Both of those tracks are wonderful!
posted by boisterousBluebird at 11:03 AM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: That's a lot of good suggestions already, I have stuff to download.

Closer to the Bjork example, Marina Herlop uses a Spain-style choral sound in her music and had great harmonies when I saw her group live. Also Son Lux do lots of interesting things with vocals but songs like Remedy use choirs in interesting ways.
posted by JZig at 11:52 AM on September 2, 2023

We sang Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb in high school. Not probably what you are looking for, but a mind-blowing bit of choral music for an 17-year old growing up in Kansas...
posted by Windopaene at 12:21 PM on September 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Julia Wolfe, Anthracite Fields
Choral arrangement of Glass’s Songs From Liquid Days
posted by matildaben at 12:40 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: Lorca Suite - Einojuhani Rautavaara
Sybilla - Rytis Mažulis
Porushka - Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble
posted by misteraitch at 12:40 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: If no one has mentioned Arvo Pärt yet, he has multiple choral recordings.
Voces8 might be good.
Meredith Monk Ensemble

I also thought of Julianna Barwick, she’s a solo indie classical artist/composer who does interesting things with layered vocals.
posted by matildaben at 12:51 PM on September 2, 2023

You might enjoy Loudhailer Electric Company's The Auricula Suite (Auricula are a subset of Primula flowers, and the group sponsored research to develop a cultivar, and built the album partly around that).

Loudhailer hail from Hull UK, and this ethereal album has harpsicord, other traditional instruments and a female solo - not quite choral, but timeless, feels like it was recorded outside.

On a phone, not sure my links work.
posted by unearthed at 12:53 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: I found a Slavic song that also has something of the percussive feeling of your first linked Braxton track: War by Song of the Goat Theatre [SoundCloud page]. They're a Polish group who combine devised theatre and choral singing/chanting, best known for Lagertha's mourning music in Vikings.

One more you might like: alternative cellist Jo Quail composed this piece for strings, percussion and choir: This Path With Grace. I don't know if it's a choral piece, strictly speaking, since the choir doesn't start until 10 minutes in or so. But it's definitely alternative. (The choral lyrics are based on the Icelandic for "The moon and tide walk this path with grace.")
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:09 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin do a lot of traditional Irish music, but they also do things that sounds like what you might like. Check out their albums Perpetual Twilight and Invisible Stars (it looks like both are on Spotify, etc). Their YouTube is mostly the more traditional stuff, but I love Body of the Moon as an example of the cool music they're doing.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:08 PM on September 2, 2023

Britten's Cooks Duet
absurdly beautiful bean plating.
W.H.Auden also involved.
posted by hortense at 5:11 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: I like Max Roach's (the jazz drummer) choral work. "It's time" from 1961 was with a sextet (Clifford Jordan, Mal Waldron, etc.), Abbey Lincoln and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson conducting the choir. "Ghost dance" from the album "To the max!" (1991) was with a vocal choir and the Uptown String Quartet.
posted by philfromhavelock at 5:38 PM on September 2, 2023

Best answer: Calling All Dawns by Christopher Tin is a (Grammy winning) collection of songs in twelve different languages, drawn from a variety of vocal traditions.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 7:26 PM on September 2, 2023

Response by poster: I am so glad I asked this question... I am slowly going through the rest of the recommendations and realizing just how varied this space is--which is fantastic! I have a lot of new works to add to my library, and more musical paths to walk down.

Thank you all for your responses and recommendations!
posted by boisterousBluebird at 4:58 AM on September 3, 2023

Since Jóhann Jóhansson’s death, companies keep releasing compilations of already recorded pieces. I was listening to Spectral Symphony last night. I realized that most of this compilation consists of choral pieces, and I actually really appreciated hearing them all together because it brought into focus how great his choral writing was. Drone Mass is good, too.
posted by matildaben at 9:59 PM on September 7, 2023

I adore Vienna Teng's "Hymn of Acxiom", a creepy yet beautiful choral song from the perspective of a voracious datamining company.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:49 PM on September 11, 2023