What's an album with a completely unique sound
While re-listening to removed Brew tonight it occurred to me, there's never been anything that sounds quite like it since, and there never will be again.
What are your favorite unicorn albums?
Daft Punk
Discovery
That's a good unicorn. I think Daft Punk also had Human After All as another unicorn type, very industrial, very unique, often overlooked.
My Life In The Bush of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno.
Holy shit.
That's what I was going to write. I don't think people in 1981 knew what hit them.
The soundtrack for 'The Catherine Wheel' that Byrne did around the same time is pretty out there as well. 'The Red House' in particular blows me away with what he did with 1981 technology.
The band[s] that jumps out at me when I think unique/original is anything that Les Claypool touches. It's never just him but he has a knack for finding people with unusual talent to make something different. Even when they are doing covers. For example the Frog Brigade doing Pink Floyd's Animals.
Tom Waits*
The Pixies*
Portishead*
Kruder & Dorfmeister the K&D Sessions
Massive Attack*
But maybe the most uniquely gifted musician on my list would be Richard David James.
Great call on Waits! I love Step Right Up
Thats a great track. Reminds me of a band I forgot.. Morphine.
Came to mention Les myself. Anytime I hear he has released something with another artist is always a surprising treat.
The Prodigy - The Fat of The Land
It's a one of a kind album. I don't think the prodigy ever made another album that good. And I don't think there is anything else out there similar to it. It has its own energy, it's definitely a unicorn type.
Smack My removed Up is insane. They won't even play it in music venues and bars anymore, sadly :(
The music video was insane!
Yeah. For quite a while I thought this was a best of, given the name too, until I realized it was just a regular album. Definitely their best.
The first album of The Crystal Method also no givese similar vibes.
Cannot believe I forgot this. Absolutely incredible album. Every single tune a banger and such a unique sound.
They absolutely nailed the Zeitgeist with it.
I'd say pretty much anything by Jarre counts.
Absolutely, I just really like the composition of the concert in China, he managed to take songs that are all part of a very specific story, as all the early electronic pioneers were classically trained and wrote albums in movements, and create a new one with them. I tend to not like lives much, but he's an absolute master as turning each one of them into their own distinct story.
If you've never seen the video for the concert in Houston it's absolutely worth the watch. RIP Ron McNair. Nearly two million people saw it. It blocked the entire highway, and the craziest shit is the vast majority of people there had not a freaking clue who he was. The concert ends and people get interviewed: "what did you think? - I have no idea what the hell I just saw but it was the best fucking thing I've ever seen 🤯"
The craziest part is despite holding the records for some of the biggest free concerts on heart, he's largely forgotten to history, only true connoisseurs and those who were true fans back then remember who he is.
Prince - Sign O the Times
One of the few albums I listen to beginning to end.
Also, Pink Floyd. Pretty much any album, but specifically Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here.
Check out the 1977 Prince Funk Sessions!
Cake's first album Fashion Nugget is the kind of unique that we rarely see twice.
Future Shock by Herbie Hancock. Dude released like 25 jazz and funk albums over two decades, then in '83 just drops a hip hop bomb
Also, Dr. John - The Night Tripper. 60s psychedelic New Orleans perfection
Oh my God that's one of the things I love about Herbie so much! He was not afraid to push himself in new musical directions. He has so many albums in his vast discography that changed the musical landscape forever.
Hell, I just listened to Headhunters before I listened to removed Brew, before I posted! And on that album is the seminal Watermelon Man where he incorporates hindewhu (pygmy music).
I would encourage anyone to listen to any Herbie album, in full, from any era. His first 6 albums are dope as hell!!
I came here to say Future shock. I just listened to it on the drive home.
‘Rockit’ was pretty much entirely made by the production team of Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn, from the band Material, with GrandMixer DXT and three other dudes doing the scratching. Hancock basically came in at the end to play some synth lines.
Here is mine.
Such a unique time when it came out. Electronic music was at peak experimental stage in the late 90’s. Kind of like B**ches Brew was the peak 60’s psychedelic experiment. This album was the perfect culmination of two masters of world music, psychedelic trance, and ambient music. Simon Posford is the absolute genius sound engineer at the peak of his game and Raja Ram was the old hippie wizard guiding him through realms unknown.
Wow I forgot about Shpongle! Haha cool memory, thanks for sharing!
I had a friend who was always on coke and acid and always was asking people to get spongled with them
Dr. Pnut, wherever you ended up, I hope you're still spongle-ing.
Thanks for this. Listened to about 20 mins and already found an album for sale which is now on its way.
Shpongle are a trip. Been years since i heard this, thanks
I'll throw my few in here:
Lemon Jelly - KY
Paul Simon - Graceland
Air - Moon Safari
Portishead - Dummy
Alt-J - An awesome wave
The two i listened to most when i was young were Sgt Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon. Happy for the vinyl revival so my kids can experience the two sides of an album.
The first, like, 5 albums by They Might Be Giants are unique in their own ways. Just different blends of wackiness and musical sophistication, it's sublime.
They are such a blast! Their children's albums are great, too; I played them all the time in English classes.
I grew up with them, and to this day I've never found anyone who quite matches that sound. Just pure musical creativity.
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
The Postal Service
There are many synth artists that try to target a similar feel, but the way they tug on your emotions with just the subtlest of sounds. Everything feels like it’s meant to fit. Never has a song made me feel more homesick than Recycled Air. And I don’t even want to go back home.
Honorable mention goes to Moon Safari by Air. First time I heard every song on that album felt like I’d heard it before in a memory.
Honorable mention goes to Moon Safari by Air. First time I heard every song on that album felt like I’d heard it before in a memory.
I still remember my first time hearing this too.
The dregs of a house party. Only a few chill people still up. Sun starts coming up and someone put it on. Absolutely perfect setting to hear that album for the first time.
I can immediately place myself in that room it seared itself into my memory with how well it hit.
I wanted to add some of my faves!
Endtroducing by DJ Shadow
It's his inaugural album and there's never been anything quite like it. Even his follow up albums, with his unique sound, feel a bit different than this one (not in a bad way, but I don't think they meet your unicorn criteria).
Also, I think this easily goes in my top ten albums list.
I never heard of this artist or album before, so far I'm 1/4 through the listening and digging it, thanks for posting
Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
Not to be mistaken with ‘The Beach Sounds’ by Pet Shop Boys.
Any album by Pink Floyd.
Even mostly works if you compare said album to other albums by Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon as a classic notable callout.
It's hard to pick not a one hit album wonder band, because bands will tend to have a lot of continuity in their sound. But dark side of the moon is both very popular and unique. Yes (Green) album was a bit of a one hit wonder.
Steely Dan and KC Roberts Live Revolution are sounds that were never copied by anyone else. NiN was very unique until copied.
I'm kind of surprised it took so long to see Trout Mask Replica here. Although the prompt was for an album you like, which might exclude it.
I'm not sure if I like it, but I definitely have the phrase "fast and bulbous" run through my head sometimes.
Yei, I was hovering on nominating a FSOL album. Glad someone did.
2112 by Rush
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly
I'm the only person I know that's heard side 2
Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon...
Iron Butterfly has an excellent live album too. The sound quality is tinny at best, but it has a good rendition of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
The Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come ... blending melodic, hardcore, jazz, and electronic into one punk album
Salmon - Paco Drop the Chicken ... Very eclectic rap / punk, beat-oriented with lots of changes. A personal favorite "local" band.
Radiohead—Amnesiac (especially the B-sides) Mr. Bungle—California ミラクルミュージカル—Hawaii: Part II (strongly related to Tally Hall, which is famous for their hit debut Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum) Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (my preferred recording of this legendary unfinished album for its complete orchestration, but I very much get the argument that it just doesn’t sound right without the Beach Boys’ voices, so I also recommend giving the Dae Lime mix a try for its combination of original and deepfaked vocals)
Purplechick was always my favorite version of SMiLE.
Nothing is deep faked, it's all taken from the original studio recordings.
just checked a few of its tracks out. like what i think is every other fan mix that doesn't use the deepfakes it lacks the (missing) vocals for Look, Worms, and Dada, the latter absence of which makes the album extremely unsatisfying and confuses the contextless first-time listener who's likely looking at this thread; see, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkJ-jRHVIxY&t=12084s
TL;DR: It's a great fan mix, but fan mixes with missing vocals are probably not the first-time experience you want to go for.
Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada.
Ween - Chocolate and Cheese
Also Nightmares on Wax - Smoker's Delight, for absolutely capturing a certain mood
Could literally say any Ween album lol
tru dat
A Grand Don’t Come For Free by The Streets. I love this album start to finish and it’s got a great story right through it.
First time I heard it I’d gotten an email from Vice promoting it and I clicked the link thinking it would just be the first 20 seconds of each song but it was the whole album! Was just starting a movie but I never watched it, just listened to the album straight through. So good.
His first few albums really are seminal. If you're a HHH there really is no comparison to them.
If this makes sense, there's a feeling of old outlaw country in those albums and the stories he tells.
It’s funny because I’m not a HHH by any stretch of the imagination! But man, this is a desert island album for me. I absolutely get what you mean about the outlaw feeling though.
I'm loving these comments, so many great albums! And a ton I've never hear of and will need to check out.
I have a few of these, but two that really jump out at me are
These are albums that you've just gotta let play.
e: can't believe I forgot Shatner!
Love that Lovage baby. That album is a gem.
Lovage is actually quite similar to instrumental hiphop/breaks that was released on Ninja Tune in the nineties. DJ Food, The Cinematic Orchestra, Wagon Christ, Coldcut, that kind of stuff.
A fortune teller told a father his kids were destined for stardom. Empowered by this, he forced the teen/adult kids to form a band. The result breaks all the rules of music. ALL of them. Ones that you don't even know existed. Frank Zappa considers them better than the beatles
If Zappa says they're good... Saving this comment to check 'em out later.
reporting back; this album is lit.
In particular "Since I left you" and "Frontier Psychiatrist" are both jams.
I live under a rock, and I live in my own temporal warp field of mostly avante garde jazz works from 1940s-1990s
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing this, I am loving the hell out of it!
This is one of my favorite albums ever.
If anyone was wondering, I believe nearly the whole album is made up of samples.
The Avalanches have a ton of other stuff. If you are a fan of Since I Left You, definitely check out the Gimix version which starts similar but has a lot of different tracks in it (including much more famous songs) https://youtu.be/X7i8bIhJY8c
They're by far one of my favorite artists. And you are correct. The band has claimed the album has no original recordings at all. And something like over 3000 samples. I still don't even know how that was possible to do back in the mid 90s when they were making it. They're other two albums are also great, each one with a different vibe, although they started relying less on samples because of how much it complicated things to ask for so many rights to so many different tracks.
I really like Pretty. Odd. by Panic! At the Disco - it sort of reminds me of the later Beatles albums but is still unique.
Love this album. It's the music that plays when the time finally arrives:
As I walk home from work on a dreary day, suddenly the clouds split apart, and in the warm light of a new day a clockwork dirigible bears down upon me. A beautiful androgyne, resplendent in a dashing suit of the color of burnished gold, leans down from the deck with a white gloved hand and grabs my eagerly lifted palm. I am borne away from this world of pain and sorrow on wings of song to take my place in the skies.
It's like they took they're sucess as a pop rock band and used it to make a proper art piece.
I actually think their first album has much more of a unique sound than that second one.
Igorrr - Spirituality and Distortion.
Latest album is great too. And the OG whourkr stuff
I'll nominate Deep Forest's 1992 self-titled album.
Gee that brings me some flashbacks!
KLF - the White Room . It is a quite unique combination of a early 90s dance album (with a few bangers that still sound good) and road movie soundtrack.
Also, excellent tread!
Anything by King Gizzard & The Lizzard Wizard
I mean, I like kgatlw, but they’re not that unique
Ha, I came here to say removed Brew before seeing it was in the OP!
I'd add Loveless by My Bloody Valentine: much-imitated, but there's nothing quite like it.
Also, my early '90s bias is showing here, but In Utero by Nirvana is uniquely brilliant. No one's melded beauty and ugliness so successfully in any medium.
hahaha no way, came across this comment as When You Sleep is playing.
agreed, oft imitated but never matched
So happy they finally made m b v though. It was an amazing coda to their masterpiece which gave some much appreciated closure and cemented loveless's place as the gem of their collection.
I saw an interview with them about how once they figured out how to play that way, time started to pass differently, and it was a healing experience for them.
I'm gonna resist quibbling about what "completely unique" ought to mean, but in the spirit of how people are answering, I'll submit Daliborovo Granje, Hainin. https://daliborovogranje.bandcamp.com/album/hainin
Croatian psychedelic instrumental rock.
Ugly Casanova. Someone left modest mouse on the burner for too long and made a powdered concentrate.
Literally every album by The Mars Volta. Each one is unique and I'll never find anything like them again.
Yanni-live at the Acropolis. There's was a brief moment in 1994 when yanni actually achieved world peace. Also Tribute, another live album, that shows how unbelievably massive yanni was. He sold out a show at the fucking Taj Majal.
Anna ash and the family tree- hello friend, from bird above. An indie folk album that's a perfect cross between a prairie home companion and the hipster folk Renaissance of the early 2000s.
Pity sex-dark world. One of the best albums out there. Emo shoegaze garagy jams with killer guitar work.
+1 for The Mars Volta!
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana
Lemon Jelly - lemonjelly ky
The Flashbulb - Opus At The End Of Everything
Extol's "Burial". Very smooth sounding record considering its bordering on Technical Death Metal.
Decapitated's "Nihility". I don't know if drums have ever sounded more violent, tonally.
Suffocation's "Pierced From Within". Unique in that IMO that level of brutality and density has still never been matched.
Ulver's "Nattens Madrigal". Bees in a tin can.
Literally anything by Ad Nauseum.
Man, I could go on and on about this. So many metal records have one of a kind production.
Not only are none of those unicorn albums if you randomly select timestamps in most of them, you can't tell you even jumped. I used to love this kind of music, but you've failed the assignment. The question was not to solicit albums you like.
Entombed - Left Hand Path is an example where it helped redefine a genre, and nothing before or since has sounded like it (because they innovated the 'buzz saw' guitar sound).
Pierced From Within didn't define the sound of Brutal Death Metal?
Nattens Madrigal didn't innovate for Raw Black Metal?
There's not a single record that sounds like Nihility does, nor does anything sound like Burial both in production and composition.
This question is asking for subjective answers. There's no such thing as failure as you so kindly put it, only difference of opinion.
Your suggestion that LHP is somehow more appropriate of a response ignores the fact that it did the exact same thing for Swedish DM as Suffocation did for BDM.
Animal Collective
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Nothing sounds quite like it
Loving and saving this whole thread, I'll add in
Ones & Zeros, Vol. 1 - 3rdegree, not SUPER unique, but it's instrumental and commitment to they're concept album's theme of uploading your consciousness into the internet gives it a ton of charm!
Larks' Tongues In Aspic - King Crimson , very surprised I haven't seen this one in the thread, a classic weird ass prog album by the Kings of Prog themselves (IMO of course). They got a guy to do a bunch of random sounds for the album and he left to become a monk days before they started the album tour lol.
I've been trying to find something similar to Holly Herndon's Proto, but haven't succeeded yet.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWGJxgOf-Z3CW7tJoN9f4lzIf8CEuMgne
Would you an everyone else reading this comment, please go into that playlist, find the unreleased video, click and Report it. I've been trying for 2 years... that crypto spam has infested 10's of thousands of full-albumn playlists.
edit adding praying hands JPG to hopefully get eyes on this. This crypto spam has been driving me mental for years and I can't understand how YT's automated tools haven't scrubbed it from the platform
How is it possible that I'm the first to mention Days of Future Past?
*Passed, right?
Yes. Of course. My bad.
possibly Speak for Yourself by Imogen Heap but I'm not sure
Cocteau Twins: Heaven Or Las Vegas
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the Moon and the Sun. It's a mix of drone, post-rock, and folk that is unlike anything I've ever heard (NSB's other albums have similarities, but this one stands out to me)
Honorable mentions:
Boris - Flood
Agalloch - Ashes against the grain
Grace Cathedral Park - In the evenings of regret
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUfQzCvWRPGdjZQR2Snca0k275TIaJ8Qh
"In kommer Gösta" is my favourite proto-progg track!
My word. That is both rancid and compelling at the same time. A great listen!
Neil Young, Le Noise is amazing on a good system. The sub sub octave acoustic efffect is very unique.
Protomen volume I - they purposely went against arbitrary recording "laws"
Rush-2112, moving pictures
Also a rare one: Burlap to Cashmere, ,is there anybody out there. Its soooo clearly mixed. Hard to find any in depth info on this album.
This thread showed up like it was meant for me in this very moment as I'm currently laying in my sofa and blasting this on high volume and drowning in the vibe:
Afro Celt Sound System - Volume 2: Release (Real World Gold)
Haven't heard anything truly like it so I think it fits the thread.
This album has been with me since my childhood.
My mom used to house sit this crazy special house during the summers around 1998-2005 that belongs to a clay sculpture artist, my mom discovered this band there and loved this album especially.
It was mostly my mom, me (born 1990) and my little sister (born 1992) in the middle of the woods all summer break in this absolutely dream like house, it's something out of a movie really.
A lot of the house was built by the artist dude, with tons of handmade clay sculptures, mosaics, wooden details of animals and twisted tree logs built into the structure. The sides of the road through the woods to the house was filled with totem poles, human-ish figures and other sculptures.
We just enjoyed the woods and the house, made clay art and nice food, went bathing in the river and took care of the garden.
There are so many deeply connected smells, sounds, sights and feelings in me to that house, it really affected me in a great way.
I so wish I could post photos of it but I have no contact with the owner and don't want to do it without his permission.
Gustav holst - the planets
Makaveili - the don killuminati the 7 day theory
Madlib - beat konducta vol 5-6 in india
Scientist - rids the world of the evil curse of the vampires .
There are many more artists that come to mind with unique sounds but that have more than one album with that sound.
Literally anything by madlib