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seedarklyxeroWelcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Harsh mechanized vocals are pretty common as a feature of some sects of the industrial genre. Sometimes it indicates a certain measure of a vocalist's ability (or lack of.) Sometimes it's an aesthetic choice that lends itself well to the style of the music. Often times the industrial covers featured here take a known song and present it with such harsh electronically modulated vocals. Today's Second Sunday Slowly downtempo cover is one of those rare occasions where it's the complete opposite: a well known industrial favorite gets remade with deep and sultry feminine vocals to a surprisingly compelling effect... one which may have always been intended!:
Noctronyx - Wreath of Barbs (:wumpscut:)
Wumpscut (or :wumpscut: if you prefer) is the German electronic industrial project founded by Rudolf "Rudy" Ratzinger in the early nineties. Wreath of Barbs was his first album of the 21st century, released in 2001, marking his transition from using Windows to Mac OS in the production of his music.
The lyrics for the title track were written by vocalist Aleta Welling. While it would be easy to assume the song is an obvious allusion to the idea of a "crown of thorns" made highly symbolic by the New Testament tales of Christ, (who one might say gets, ahem, "fuck"ed by a different track on the album,) Ratzinger never seems to confirm that as its theme. He has claimed that the titular inspiration for the song was drawn specifically from his fascination since childhood with "prickly things" and "spiky hooks," explaining in one interview [translated from German], "dangerous images are simply more attractive than safe images."
Welling was originally intended to sing on the track (and she does so for other tracks on the album) but Ratzinger opted to perform it himself with a vocoder instead, saying in another interview, "the melancholic robot won the fight."
In January 2012, Ratzinger released another among many remixes of the track, this one credited to the band Violet, who replaced his vocals with those of their singer, Bianca Stücker. Another female artist, Sandi Leeper, released a cover of the track independently, also in 2012, though she did not seem to be aware of the Violet remix at that time. However neither of these were the first version of the song to feature a female vocalist. In 2002, the same year as the single release, a female-led Russian rock/EBM act called Kardinal included a distinctively reworked cover of the track on their album titled, Antialbum, which credits most of its songs as based on music by Rammstein and :wumpscut:.
In April of this year, Noctronyx, a recently formed dance-industrial project produced by musician Ron Graves with vocalist Mysti Quezada, released their cover of Wreath of Barbs. Again, it's not the first to approach the track with minimally effected feminine vocals, but Quezada's are rich, breathy, and sensuous against the familiar instrumentation that is punctuated with a variant syncopation. If you haven't already heard any of those covers or the remix previously mentioned, this could come as quite a refreshing take on one of our scene's most revered dance floor anthems.:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
A special edition of Third Sunday Throwback that ties into a guest appearance I'll be making later that week on a podcast that reviews the worst of albums!
The featured artist of both also inspired a "Spike" of sorts! And for all the covers he has done, rated on a scale of one to ten, this one might just be a Zero.
(Also might not... honestly I'm still deciding on which to focus.¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ )
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Aug 05 - Das Projekt - Monday, Monday (The Mamas & The Papas)
Jul 29 - Menschliche Energie - New Dress (Depeche Mode)
Jul 22 - Acidrodent - illisiT (Skinny Puppy)
Jul 15 - Laura Branigan - Self Control (Raf)
Jul 08 - Savlonic - Go with the Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Harsh mechanized vocals are pretty common as a feature of some sects of the industrial genre. Sometimes it indicates a certain measure of a vocalist's ability (or lack of.) Sometimes it's an aesthetic choice that lends itself well to the style of the music. Often times the industrial covers featured here take a known song and present it with such harsh electronically modulated vocals. Today's Second Sunday Slowly downtempo cover is one of those rare occasions where it's the complete opposite: a well known industrial favorite gets remade with deep and sultry feminine vocals to a surprisingly compelling effect... one which may have always been intended!:
Noctronyx - Wreath of Barbs (:wumpscut:)
Wumpscut (or :wumpscut: if you prefer) is the German electronic industrial project founded by Rudolf "Rudy" Ratzinger in the early nineties. Wreath of Barbs was his first album of the 21st century, released in 2001, marking his transition from using Windows to Mac OS in the production of his music.
The lyrics for the title track were written by vocalist Aleta Welling. While it would be easy to assume the song is an obvious allusion to the idea of a "crown of thorns" made highly symbolic by the New Testament tales of Christ, (who one might say gets, ahem, "fuck"ed by a different track on the album,) Ratzinger never seems to confirm that as its theme. He has claimed that the titular inspiration for the song was drawn specifically from his fascination since childhood with "prickly things" and "spiky hooks," explaining in one interview [translated from German], "dangerous images are simply more attractive than safe images."
Welling was originally intended to sing on the track (and she does so for other tracks on the album) but Ratzinger opted to perform it himself with a vocoder instead, saying in another interview, "the melancholic robot won the fight."
In January 2012, Ratzinger released another among many remixes of the track, this one credited to the band Violet, who replaced his vocals with those of their singer, Bianca Stücker. Another female artist, Sandi Leeper, released a cover of the track independently, also in 2012, though she did not seem to be aware of the Violet remix at that time. However neither of these were the first version of the song to feature a female vocalist. In 2002, the same year as the single release, a female-led Russian rock/EBM act called Kardinal included a distinctively reworked cover of the track on their album titled, Antialbum, which credits most of its songs as based on music by Rammstein and :wumpscut:.
In April of this year, Noctronyx, a recently formed dance-industrial project produced by musician Ron Graves with vocalist Mysti Quezada, released their cover of Wreath of Barbs. Again, it's not the first to approach the track with minimally effected feminine vocals, but Quezada's are rich, breathy, and sensuous against the familiar instrumentation that is punctuated with a variant syncopation. If you haven't already heard any of those covers or the remix previously mentioned, this could come as quite a refreshing take on one of our scene's most revered dance floor anthems.:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
A special edition of Third Sunday Throwback that ties into a guest appearance I'll be making later that week on a podcast that reviews the worst of albums!
The featured artist of both also inspired a "Spike" of sorts! And for all the covers he has done, rated on a scale of one to ten, this one might just be a Zero.
(Also might not... honestly I'm still deciding on which to focus.¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ )
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Aug 05 - Das Projekt - Monday, Monday (The Mamas & The Papas)
Jul 29 - Menschliche Energie - New Dress (Depeche Mode)
Jul 22 - Acidrodent - illisiT (Skinny Puppy)
Jul 15 - Laura Branigan - Self Control (Raf)
Jul 08 - Savlonic - Go with the Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-12 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-12 11:37 pm (UTC)but I can see why this new version will definitely have some fans, though I like them both for reasons specific to each!