Recommend me: Weird-Voiced Female Singers

lots of good stuff that you may be looking for in ^^ that thread but carry on if you must

i think the "classically trained" part was a red herring anyway

Did Karen Dalton get onto the list yet?

Or Pinkie Maclure? certainly her early stuff showed that, haven't heard her stuff with John Loop.

Regina Spektor? She can get a bit old sometimes but when the urge strikes, she's fantastic (try: Pavlov's Daughter)

<3 Yoko so much

Sue Tompkins of Life Without Buildings
Molly Siegel of Ponytail

xp and on a completely different tip.. Wanda Jackson? Fujiyama Mama and others?

Dorothy Moscovitz and Nancy Blossom.
Grace slick

Leila Mourad, Betty Davis, Serafina Steer

― Melissa W, Thursday, August 23, 2012

I was thinking of coming back and adding Leila Mourad! Shocked to see her name pop up.

Nice! I really love her.

La Lupe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kRIV23LQyI

Yes, she was a self-parody, but great nevertheless and she could kill (in a good sense!) a straight bolero without camping it up.

Yolanda Rivera, mostly known for her work with La Sonora Poncena. I still find her vocal timbre a bit weird at times, but in most cases I've grown to enjoy her songs. Also a decent timabelero, incidentally:

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

looooove la lupe

Also happy birthday La Lechera!

don't forget my hero maureen! she might actually pay me a visit this fall on a trip east. kinda nervous...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LogZn8sQGUY

Oh man, Laser Pace. Awesome.

Soap & Skin? Not super weird but definitely not traditional pop either.

Some Brigitte Fontaine perhaps?

Cuban Haila Mompie has kind of an odd voice. 100% sure this is not what dog latin is looking for, however.

Really hate the pinched trumpet sound in the beginning, something very contemporary Cuban.

but like it overall.

Do you guys ever get ILX usernames in your head, too? I've been walking around for like the past five days saying "lil swayne of pie" to myself... I feel like I'm going nuts.

A lot of these are very dramatically weird, and my suggestion is just weird weird. Anyway, Jenny Wade of Rude Buddha, Vodka, Timber, Swans, etc. I'm not quite sure how she ever decided to *be* a lead singer, but over time I find her voice kind of endearing. The Timber cover of Television's "Friction" seems to only be available here, and is worth hearing...

http://www.sensitiveskinmagazine.com/timber-released-unreleased/

Oh, duh: Jennifer Herrema (Royal Trux/RTX/ Black Bananas). Didn't even realize for some time that her voice belonged to a woman.

How about Maja Ratkje? (Or is that just "doing weird stuff with a female voice"?)

im sure she's mentioned somewhere in the linked threads, but for those of you like me, who sometimes just dont follow the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzmYA5imuyw

Another one that I've gone crazy over the years trying to remember: there was some twee minimalist pop band in the 90's, from Southern US I think, had a female lead singer with a really cartoonish voice. they definitely came to NYC at least once. Probably reviewed in chickfactor, had a catchy song or two, but I can't seem to remember the name. I *think* it was a one-syllable band-name. They were, you know, around...but never famous or anything. When I try to remember the band name, I always think "Doop" but that's not it. Probably played Mercury Lounge...

Smack Dab?

Yes!!!!!!!!

God bless you! I've been trying to remember that for years.

That is some classic Joan La Barbara. I misread that as "redundant gypsy" even though I already know the title.

xp Haha, no problem! I was going to mention her (Linda Hagood) earlier, but she could be a bit much.

Mimi Goese was one I thought of earlier
then Kristen Hersh came on my walkman too.

Anita Lane might fit toojust being reminded by the C&TCS thread

Hey. It's Jun Togawa!

Soap & Skin is phoney baloney. Yecch.

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.
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" . padma talwalkar - best hindustani khyal singer i ever heard. tujiko noriko i find not much like björk at all, despite comparisons. thankfully she doesn't work predictable scale-runs, etta james wookie belches or b52s rip offs into her vocal style, which is considerably more breathless & minimalist. tsehaytu beraki worth checking - eritrean krarist & singer. some groove - sounds like black sabbath to me but then my brain is corrupted.
XP:mimi goese's singing on hugo largo's "mettle" album particularly but also her "soak" album under her own name. sainkho namchylak - tuvan throat singer who ventures successfully into free improv outer space.
stina nordenstam gets some stick for doing cutesy ickle high voiced squeak-singing jazz-pop early in her career, but became the utmostest deadpan noir-dramatist with her "dynamite" album, "morning belongs to the night", "the birds sing for their lives" and a buncha other stuff.

A lot of these suggestions are just weak singers who sing English with bad accents. Living in Europe long enough has cured me of any fascination I once had for such.

Mrs. Miller is something else though. I think she's brilliant!!

Pretty much all of the female vocalists mentioned on this thread will seem weird to western ears (sometimes SWM ones):

Carnatic Music Recommendations?

Ayelet rose Gottlieb

Oh yeah and of course The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson

Weird how there's so many Swedish female singers who seem to downright imitate her now, like the singer form Zeigeist, Malin Dahlström from Niki & The Dove, and Karen Park especially.

Anybody mentioned Grimes and Lizzi Bougatsos from Gang Gang Dance yet?

Karen Dalton. Gorgeous.

Ayelet rose Gottlieb

who I had mentioned on one of the threads I linked to, not that it's not worth repeating. She's not always that weird though really.

Lisa Gerrard has one of the most impressive and unusual voices. Hard to believe sometimes that it's all from the same person.

Charlotte Marionneau from La Volume Courbe

Marie Daulne from Zap Mama

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

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/