3-10-08 Falling

Well, looks like it’s my turn to apologize, Shanoah, cos when I saw you were writing a post called “Falling”, I knew exactly what I wanted to put up today. I strike, silent and deadly, like a ninja, or possibly a pirate! A NINJA PIRATE! ARRRRR!

Anyway, your neat thing today is one of the most unusual, or at least extreme, electronica acts out there. I first heard it on Scott Williams‘ WFMU show. Atom and His Package comes close, but there’s still a human up on the stage with the computer. Mister Hopkinson’s Computer (and his friend The Audrey 3000) have, HAL-like, done away with human performers. All the singing is done via speech synthesis (or at least, that what it sounds like to me).

You’d think that songs done by speech synthesis would be cold and jagged. But it’s surprisingly rich and emotional.

This is the song that made me sit up and take notice: Julee Cruise’s Falling, best remembered as the theme from Twin Peaks. It’s weird, but a computer conveys a  sense of loneliness and Washington winter cold that Cruise doesn’t or, being flesh and blood, couldn’t.

Uncanny valley much?

BTW, the original MP3 is available for download on WFMU’s bloated, groaning-under-its-own-weight On the Download.

Here’s the original, by Cruise, for comparison.