Page - 57 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

Voicing the Technological Body | 57www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 49–69 of “Someone to Watch Over Me”.26 The highly intimate effect can be heard in a com- parison with other recordings of the same ballad, such as that by female jazz singer Lee Wiley (1908–1975).27 Even though Wiley’s voice also sounds intimately present on the recording and she too sings some quite aspirate tones, Sinatra makes significantly more use of the effect created by letting the microphone lift the lower frequencies of his voice (as in the characteristic low beginning of the song’s rising melody) and allows his voice to tend much more towards speaking and rather noise-like sounds. A second strategy that involves using the microphone to amplify presence can be found in the diverse practices of beatboxing and vocal percussion. In this case, a per- son imitates percussion instruments and thus, one could say, imitates technology, but the most present effect of this method is a product of technological amplifica- tion. Trained vocalists are capable of naturalistically imitating sound from acoustic or electronic percussion or from drumming by producing percussive sounds with their mouths, sometimes in combination with hand slaps on body parts. In the early days of hip hop, beatboxing was practised without amplification. When combined with microphone technology, however, percussive sounds produced with the mouth can be amplified such that listeners can imagine having their ears intimately close to the mouth of the musician. For instance, it is interesting to listen to the contribu- tion of well-known beatboxer Rahzel on Björk’s album Medúlla (2004), a contribu- tion produced exclusively with human voices, combined, of course, with production technology. Rahzel often combines percussive sounds, produced with breath, lips, and tongue, with low, sliding bass lines, often sung with the mouth shut – mostly relatively soft sounds that can be perceived as present, clear, and voluminous. On the track “The Pleasure is All Mine”, Rahzel’s soft electronic-style beatbox is combined with, among others, breath sounds by Björk, generating audible representatives of intimacy made directly present by amplification.28 Coming from a different style, the African American a cappella group Take VI uses voice and body percussion in addition to their multivocal arrangements. On their al- bum So Much 2 Say, Take VI emphasise their use of vocal percussion with ostentation as well as with a self-ironic twist on the track “I L-O-V-E U” by introducing it with a minimal spoken track called “Human Body”: here, a ludicrous-sounding speaker an- nounces that “all the sounds on this next song including the drums were made by the human voice or some other part of ... the human body”.29 For a third strategy of microphonic presence, I refer to a vocal style that has be- come common in extreme metal genres like death metal or in hardcore or hybrid 26 Frank Sinatra, Axel Stordahl Orchestra, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, in ’S Wonderful: The Songs of George Gershwin, His 51 Finest (1925–1951) (Retrospective, 2011). 27 Lee Wiley, Eddie Condon and his Band, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, in Romantic Standards: The Great American Love Songs (Varese Sarabande, n.d.). 28 See also the documentary in Björk, Medúlla special, The Archive DVD Series (2-Disc Set) (Wellhart/One Little Indian, 2004–2005). 29 Take 6, So Much 2 Say (Reprise Records, 1990).