I’m a fan of Savatage/Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and on some of their more recent albums (Wake of Magellan, Dead Winter Dead, Beethoven’s Last Night, for example) each one has one or two songs that use a style that I really like, so I’d like to find out if any other artists do the same thing.
The style is to start with a single sung line, then each time through add another line until you’ve got four or five interleaved lines going at the same time. Then they go for awhile with all four or five at once and eventually “pull out” and end the song. Those who are familiar with TSO/Savatage probably know what I mean (it’s a very distinctive sound) but I hope I’ve explained it well enough that if anyone recognizes it, they can help me find more. The only other place I’ve encountered anything similiar was on the soundtrack for the '80s movie “Xanadu,” which includes a rock number interleaved with an “Andrews Sisters” style '40s number.
The technique you’re describing is polyphony, and it’s pretty rare. Solefald uses it on In Harmonia Universali, and that’s the only (non-classical) example I can think of.
You may also want to check out The League of Crafty Guitarists. Robert Fripp put the group together (much of it’s membership has come from his Guitar Craft school) and it’s simply amazing.
Spock’s Beard used polyphony in two songs on their album Snow: “Long Time Suffering” and “Devil’s Got My Throat”, though only for a brief bit in each song – less than a minute each.
Liz Phair’s “Flower” also has a two-voice polyphonic thing going on.
Now that I think about it, if you’re interested in instrumental polyphony, you should check out the Talking Heads’ mid-period work–mostly Fear of Music and Remain in Light.
Polyphony simply means “many sounds” – ie: multiple voices or instruments each doing its own thing. It need not be so orderly as all that adding-and-subtracting-lines business. Listen to Dixieland jazz much?
I’ll have to go home and look it up, but on the European versions of the Savatage albums they talk about doing this. They said that no other band they knew of had done it, but I’ll look for sure when I get home. Savatage also do it on Handful of Rain and Poets and Madmen.
Beware of Doug, I don’t know if polyphony is the exact word we are looking for. In Savatage’s work they will do one chorus, then add on a different chorus, then another, all done by the same singer. I know I’ve never really heard anything like it.
I also think that there may be some on Zak Stevens’, the singer for Savatage, solo album with the band Circle II Circle. But I’ll have to go listen to it and let you know.
I have just listened to the Circle II Circle album, and yes there is some of the same type of thing on there, not a whole lot, and not like the Savatage stuff, but there is some on there.
The description by the OP sounds like extreme multitracking, possibly with polyrhythms. If you like polyrhythms, you might like King Crimson. Their LP Discipline would be an excellent start.
The other suggestions – Talking Heads, XTC – are great, too, although I think XTC’s “Wake Up” (off of The Big Express) is a far more likeable example for the typical rock fan.
I looked it up this morning, I’ve been away for the last week almost. They called it Counterpoint in the liner notes and said that they only knew three rock bands to have tried it before. One was the Beatles on Sargent Peppers, another was Spock’s Beard, and the third I don’t remember. This came from the Europen release of Handful of Rain so it is a couple of years old now.