Single Gun Theory

Canada's Nettwerk label is fairly notable for releasing and managing some strong female vocalists. Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne and Leigh Nash of Sixpense None the Richer have all called Nettwerk home at one time or another. But as far as purity of vocals goes, Jacqui Hunt of Single Gun Theory has them all beat. The Australian trio released three albums between 1987 and 1994 featuring Hunt on vocals with Pete Rivett-Carnac and Kath Power on samplers and keyboards. In style, Single Gun Theory combines the electronic beats of dance music with nuances of Indian and Middle Eastern music and ethereal vocals.



The band also scored the 2000 film, The Monkey's Mask before the members went their separate ways. The three albums Exorcise This Wasteland, Like Stars in My Hands, and Flow, River of My Soul are out of print, but available from Amazon.com as digital downloads.

Ruby

There are a couple of similarities between Ruby and Garbage. Both are headed by Scottish female vocalists with US backing and production. Both released their debut albums in 1995. Both pushed genre boundaries: Garbage with their lush, heavy sound and Ruby with their esoteric mixture of electronic, trip-hop, industrial and even jazz.¹ The inability to comfortably box Ruby into a single genre might be part of the reason that they have remained less popular. Ruby consists of vocalist Lesley Rankine and producer Mark Walk. Unlike Garbage, aside from the vocals, Ruby's music is entirely synthetic, made of samples and loops. It is Rankine's voice that anchors the potential chaos.

Their first album, Salt Peter reaped their biggest US release, "Tiny Meat":



While the duo began work on a second album in 1996, very poor luck with music labels postponed it's release to 2001. Short Staffed at the Gene Pool is a slightly more mellow effort relying more on the down-tempo dance and jazz qualities of the first album. Both albums, as well as two remix efforts for Short Staffed, are available from Amazon.com. Short Staffed is also available on CD.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(band)

Eisbrecher

Following in wake of KMFDM's more electronic forays rather than Rammstein's rougher and more popularized sound, fellow German band Eisbrecher has been quietly producing solid albums for the past five years. While less political and less angry than the aforementioned, Eisbrecher is far from a "happy" band. Their music mixes industrial, metal and dance aspects in varying ratios with dark-aspected lyrics...in German, of course.



Eisbrecher recently released their third album Sünde. Unfortunately, unlike their two previous albums, it was not picked up for US distribution. All of their albums are available in CD form through Amazon.com, though Sünde bears the price of an import. It and their second album, Antikörper, are available as MP3 downloads.

Update: 1/12/09 - IsoTank Music announced that Sünde would be released on CD in the US on March 10th.

Abney Park

Steampunk. That is the genre name that Abney Park prefers these days. A label usually reserved for steam engine era "future" technology, it fits Abney Park's mixture of industrial dance beats and turn-of-the-previous-century orchestral instrumentation. With a bit of 90s goth and world music influences thrown in for good measure. What might end up being an unfocused mess in the hands of lesser musicians is held together perfectly by Robert Brown's vocal and the rest of the "crew." Though they've been around for a decade (and are probably not-so-obscure in some circles), Abney Park continues to become solid contiguous whole.

Abney Park offers quite a few songs for free via their Vault.

From their 2000 release Cemetery Number 1, this is "The Wake":


This year's "Airship Pirate" off of Lost Horizons:


And, better than anything you'll hear at the mall this month, "Little Drummer Boy" from Dark Christmass:


Four of Abney Park's albums are currently available from Amazon.com in both CD and digital form and in CD form off their website. Cemetery Number 1, Twisted & Broken (a remix album) and Dark Christmass are available through Vault access. I've purchased Vault access in the past and have found the band to be great to do business with.

Update (before I even post):
Dark Christmass is being offered for a limited time as a separate download!

Brother Sun Sister Moon

Not to be confused with the Franco Zeffirelli film or the Donovan album, Brother Sun Sister Moon is the trip-hop collaboration between Paul Robb of Information Society and vocalist Barbara Cohen. For anyone familiar with Cohen's more acoustic work with Little Lizard or her country-sounding solo album, the pair do not seem to be a logical match. For someone who first encountered Cohen's powerful voice in the context of Brother Sun Sister Moon's lush orchestrations, it's hard to understand why there have only been two albums by the duo.

Their first album The Great Game was released in 1997 to local buzz in Minneapolis and other parts of the heartland. It caught the attention of Virgin Records who signed them to produce a second album. Unfortunately, that album, Luminous, was never released by Virgin, the group was dropped, and eventually Luminous was released by Bleep Records in 2002.



Both albums were re-released by Robb's HAKATAK imprint in 2007. They are available for download only through Amazon.com (here and here) as well as through other online music outlets.

Source: Time to play b-sides