Vocal Harmonies in Prog

[Firth]

The Spectral Mornings EP has some awesome vocal/harmonies. Christina Booth (Magenta), David Longdon (Big Big Train, and one of the top 2 contenders for Phil Collins job in Genesis back in the 90s)

[progeezer]

Female harmonies are certainly prevalent in the sisters Heart music, as well as when both Findlay & Helder were in Mostly Autumn.

[Scott Bails]

Per Stewart:

In 1974 10CC recorded their third album, "The Original Soundtrack".
On that album there was a song that would not only be one of the greatest songs ever recorded, it also was a production masterpiece, way ahead of its time.
The song is, of course, "I'm Not In Love" written by Eric Stewart and co-writer, Graham Gouldman.

A prominent feature of the song are those amazing, ethereal choral parts.
Since this was pre-digital times, there have been a lot of discussions and theories about how these fantastic voices were produced.

Eric Stewart, explains: "It was Lol that came up with the idea of making tape-loops, that would run endlessly. So, we spent three weeks recording three guys, just singing 'ahhhhhh', on to Strawberry Studios 16-track Studer tape machine. Each note had 16 tracks of three people singing, giving me 48 voices for each note of a chromatic scale. That's 13 notes x 48 voices which gave me 624 voices to play with in my mix"

The 16 tracks notes were then individually mixed down to 1/4 inch tapes that were then looped, from the stereo Studer machine, using mike-stands with rollers to tension tape-loops properly, and then recorded back to the 16 track, so that each note was on a separate track on the 16 track Studer Tape recorder.

Eric Continues: "The four of us then actually got around the control desk, and started to change the notes of each chord as it was changing within the song, moving the notes up and down with the faders, but while this was changing, I also had a constant background of all the 13 voice notes sizzling away just underneath the stereo mix-down. This is where the ethereal sound of 'I'm Not in Love' was developed from".

Very cool. Thanks, Fred.

[tribalfusion]

This is an interesting thread which I happened to come across just today. I was surprised no one mentioned the Australian band, Rainbow Theatre though.

If you try this about 17 minutes in, there are tons of vocal harmony parts (in other spots too):



Does anyone have any other suggestions not included in the thread up to now perhaps?

[Crawford Glissadevil]

I'll search through my Italian prog collection for primo harmonies because vocal harmonies are a big bonus in my world.

[alucard]

I was quite lucky to see David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir in the south of France in an abbaye in the early 80s Most anazing experience in terms of vocal harmonizing. I bought their record Hearing Solar Winds then, but it gives only a vague idea of the concert experience. In general a good choir in a church with good acoustics is always amazing.

[Mascodagama]

I'll search through my Italian prog collection for primo harmonies because vocal harmonies are a big bonus in my world.

The choral introduction to PFM's L'Isola di Niente is great.

In rather similar vein, to my mind, are the lovely choral parts on the version of Resplandor that appeared on last year's Bubu album El eco del Sol.

[Buddhabreath]

I always dug the Barclay James Harvest harmonies esp. Everyone Is Everybody Else - I'd recommend it to CSN fans who haven't heard it.

[Zeuhlmate]

Expeditionary Twitch
by John Elmquist's HardArt groop

https://johnelmquistshardartgroop.bandcamp.com/releases

[Teddy Vengeance]

Individual tracks:

City Boy’s Haymaking Time has one of the lushest pieces of harmonizing you can ever hope to hear. Delicate, charming song.

The Roches have been mentioned, but Losing True (with some vintage Fripp riffs) is spine-tingling.

[TheH]

[Mascodagama]

This piece always gets me:

[TheH]

This piece always gets me:

Much of Niemen or SBB's stuff is up to every international standard imagenable.
Highly underrated...

[Mascodagama]

Much of Niemen or SBB's stuff is up to every international standard imagenable.
Highly underrated...

I very much agree.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Much of Niemen or SBB's stuff is up to every international standard imaginable.
Highly underrated...

Mostly above any "usual" standard, and thus not really underrated at all (as they were always famous with their homecrowd) - rather just underappreciated within a tiny "prog" audience which shuns absolutely everything once it's "strange and/or alien".

SBB, much of Niemen's output, the first couple of Budka Suflera records, some Skaldowie, Czechoslowak acts like M. Éfekt, Progrés 2, Collegium Musicum, Dezo Ursíny (etc.), loads of names from the GDR, Hungary, Yugoslavia et al. - these upheld standards sometimes almost unheard of in the West. But alas they're not trying hard enough to consciously sound like […….], so we don't want to have to know too much about them.