Tuesday, June 20, 2023

That Voice - the origin!

 Not the origin of the vocal style but of me identifying it as such

Well not quite - in this June 27 1987 Singles column, in which "White Rabbit" turned up unexpectedly as a reissued single, Lord alone knows why (some kind of movie tie-in?) I don't use the term "that voice". But I do hurl out the metaphor of the stridently searing female voice as a lance or javelin for the very first time. (But not the last time, no indeed).





















And there is the first inkling of a lineage, with the reference to the Ice Queen Siouxsie and the marrow-curdling intensity of Kristin Hersh

The Singles column had a whole thematic to do with "Ice", part of a running thing to with anti-humanism, inclement and inhospitable environments, "let us be angels or monsters, not paltry and lowly beings of the flesh". 






















I picked up the theme in an end-of-year overview minipiece on the voix mystere, sketching out the start of a canon





2 comments:

  1. i think the White Rabbit reissue would be because it was used in Oliver Stone's Platoon

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