Monday 17 November 2008

Duets



I love male and female vocals - from the beautiful harmonies of The Raveonettes to the harsher raw quality of The Pixies, I have a list of bands that do this and do this so well.

Starting off with Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra - Hazlewood embodied everything masculine and Sinatra embodied femininity at its highest form. Hazlewood's grainy, husky voice in contrast to Sinatra's dulcet tones set up a musical partnership that has never really been matched.

'Summer Wine' is a personal favourite alongside the heavily covered, 'Some Velvet Morning'.

Summer Wine - Nancy Sinatra

Jumping forwards to the 1980s, my love for The Vaselines emerged after hearing Nirvana's 'Incesticide' EP in which songs like 'Son Of A Gun' and 'Molly's Lips' were covered. Here's a clip of Nirvana doing 'Molly's Lips' with The Vaselines' Eugene Kelly on guest vocals.



I also love the collaboration between Jesus and Mary Chain and Mazzy Star - two of my all-time favourite bands:


My good friends The Raveonettes remain a close source of inspiration and Sune and Sharin's voices are perhaps the most musically entwined I've ever heard. At times it's hard to differentiate who is actually singing and I think that makes them all the more fascinating. Their harmonies are tremendous and I love what they do so much.

Dead Sound - The Raveonettes

Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell's project has also been really inspiring. I've always wanted to do a male/female vocal semi-acoustic project and this is something I'll certainly give more time to in the future or perhaps we may even recruit a guest male vocalist for The Birds at some point....
D-Bird

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