Animals and robots might seem like strange bedfellows for rock albums, but once you know what you’re looking for, they are hard to miss. There are hundreds of examples of bands who have piped in animal noises for any number of reasons: to provide atmosphere, as a story-song plot device, just to add some insanity, or possibly even something unseemly. Think of all the new-age fodder that relies on birdsongs, crickets, frogs, and tortured pig wails. Hasil Adkins, Lux Interior, Ray Stevens, and Raffi would all be out of work if they couldn’t sing animal noises - and were still alive. And of course, artist as robot is almost commonplace now, what with the non-humanoid success of acts like Kraftwerk, Devo, Man or Astroman, Servotron, Daft Punk, and Michael McDonald. Fauna and automatons in popular music surround us like we’re all riding our Tron motorcycles to Coachella during some post-apocalyptic doomscape.
But what lies beyond this casual relationship? What happens when bands relinquish some control of their aesthetic sound to orangutans and toasters or dugongs and doomsday devices? Are we breaking new ground or just finding yet another source of novelty? Or both. Over two episodes we will explore the merger of non-human caterwauling and popular music. How much of this is simply a gimmick and how much is a sincere exploration of music outside the influence of mankind? We will be returning to this topic in a later episode, where we tackle robot musicians, from player pianos to Terminators. But today, we will devolve to dance among the beasts.
So, tell Marlin Perkins to dust off that keytar, St Francis to open the cages, and David Attenborough to tickle himself some ivories. Get ready for thrillin’ reptilian. Amplified amphibians. Ambles of Mammals. When this ark gets to rockin’, be wary of knockin’. This petting zoo is going to get heavy. Today, non-human bands, part 1: the animal kingdom.
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