1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Magma - Mekanik destruktiw kömmandöh. Magma did a 13(?) Album journey in an alien language
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones - Sea Brazil Banjo jazz 'nuff said. Live in Montreal is insane but not an "album"
Terry Reilly - Persian Surgery Dervishes a legendary improvisation
Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert Dude is out of his tree. A true legend.
Geneva jacuzzi - Lamaze. I challenge you to find something more unique.
Rage against the machine - rage against the machine album
Pig destroyer - prowler in the yard
Eminem - the slim shady lp and marshal Mathers lp
Alice in chains - dirt
Rob zombie - hell Billy deluxe
Korn, I can't pick one album
Guns n roses - appetite for destruction
Gutalax - shit beast
Kendrick Lamar to pimp a butterfly
Bones and Beeker self titled album, 2015.
Splashdown - Blue Shift album
Igorrr - Spirituality and Distortion.
Latest album is great too. And the OG whourkr stuff
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana
Lemon Jelly - lemonjelly ky
The Flashbulb - Opus At The End Of Everything
Skinny Puppy - Last Rights
Stereolab - Dots and Loops
Aesop Rock - Bazooka Tooth
GWAR - Scumdogs of the Universe
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Steve Reich, music for 18 musicians
Neil Young, Le Noise is amazing on a good system. The sub sub octave acoustic efffect is very unique.
Protomen volume I - they purposely went against arbitrary recording "laws"
Rush-2112, moving pictures
Also a rare one: Burlap to Cashmere, ,is there anybody out there. Its soooo clearly mixed. Hard to find any in depth info on this album.
Endtroducing by DJ Shadow
It's his inaugural album and there's never been anything quite like it. Even his follow up albums, with his unique sound, feel a bit different than this one (not in a bad way, but I don't think they meet your unicorn criteria).
Also, I think this easily goes in my top ten albums list.
I never heard of this artist or album before, so far I'm 1/4 through the listening and digging it, thanks for posting
'Mirrored' by Battles (2007).
They've got a mostly traditional setup and instrumentation, but the sounds they make are really strange and unique. Sometimes the words of the songs aren't real words. It's just really out there, from start to finish.
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
Cake's first album Fashion Nugget is the kind of unique that we rarely see twice.
The Prodigy - The Fat of The Land
It's a one of a kind album. I don't think the prodigy ever made another album that good. And I don't think there is anything else out there similar to it. It has its own energy, it's definitely a unicorn type.
Smack My Bitch Up is insane. They won't even play it in music venues and bars anymore, sadly :(
The music video was insane!
Cannot believe I forgot this. Absolutely incredible album. Every single tune a banger and such a unique sound.
They absolutely nailed the Zeitgeist with it.
Yeah. For quite a while I thought this was a best of, given the name too, until I realized it was just a regular album. Definitely their best.
The first album of The Crystal Method also no givese similar vibes.
I live under a rock, and I live in my own temporal warp field of mostly avante garde jazz works from 1940s-1990s
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing this, I am loving the hell out of it!
This is one of my favorite albums ever.
If anyone was wondering, I believe nearly the whole album is made up of samples.
The Avalanches have a ton of other stuff. If you are a fan of Since I Left You, definitely check out the Gimix version which starts similar but has a lot of different tracks in it (including much more famous songs) https://youtu.be/X7i8bIhJY8c
They're by far one of my favorite artists. And you are correct. The band has claimed the album has no original recordings at all. And something like over 3000 samples. I still don't even know how that was possible to do back in the mid 90s when they were making it. They're other two albums are also great, each one with a different vibe, although they started relying less on samples because of how much it complicated things to ask for so many rights to so many different tracks.
The first, like, 5 albums by They Might Be Giants are unique in their own ways. Just different blends of wackiness and musical sophistication, it's sublime.
Most albums by Mamaleek. They change up the sound on each record, and still stay unlike anyone else. Check out ‘Diner Coffee’ and ‘Vida Blue’.
Daft Punk
Discovery
That's a good unicorn. I think Daft Punk also had Human After All as another unicorn type, very industrial, very unique, often overlooked.
Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
Not to be mistaken with ‘The Beach Sounds’ by Pet Shop Boys.
Any album by Pink Floyd.
Even mostly works if you compare said album to other albums by Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon as a classic notable callout.
It's hard to pick not a one hit album wonder band, because bands will tend to have a lot of continuity in their sound. But dark side of the moon is both very popular and unique. Yes (Green) album was a bit of a one hit wonder.
Steely Dan and KC Roberts Live Revolution are sounds that were never copied by anyone else. NiN was very unique until copied.
The band[s] that jumps out at me when I think unique/original is anything that Les Claypool touches. It's never just him but he has a knack for finding people with unusual talent to make something different. Even when they are doing covers. For example the Frog Brigade doing Pink Floyd's Animals.
Tom Waits*
The Pixies*
Portishead*
Kruder & Dorfmeister the K&D Sessions
Massive Attack*
But maybe the most uniquely gifted musician on my list would be Richard David James.
I'll throw my few in here:
Lemon Jelly - KY
Paul Simon - Graceland
Air - Moon Safari
Portishead - Dummy
Alt-J - An awesome wave
Animal Collective
Prince - Sign O the Times
One of the few albums I listen to beginning to end.
Also, Pink Floyd. Pretty much any album, but specifically Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here.
Want to save this thread for later, may as well name a couple as well
The Faceless - Planetary Duality. Technical death metal album that found an outstanding balance between technically-impressive musicianship, interesting compositional intricacacies, and raw primal brutality. Nothing scratches that itch like this album does for me. And if you're into drums, Alex Rudinger's drumming in Xenochrist is wholly and entirely inhuman. The dude is an octopus trapped in a man's body. I'd recommend watching his Xenochrist drum playthrough video if you're particularly interested
Infected Mushroom - Converting Vegetarians. These two guys are absolute wizards of music production, and this album showcases their insane ability to bring out such colorful personalities from their meticulously crafted synth leads, through gradual and dramatic evolution... Which they usually do in a familiar psy-trance setting. But the "chill side" half of this album accomplishes this wonderfully in a unique, much more relaxed, low-tempo style that I'm genuinely struggling to find words to describe
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the Moon and the Sun. It's a mix of drone, post-rock, and folk that is unlike anything I've ever heard (NSB's other albums have similarities, but this one stands out to me)
Honorable mentions:
Boris - Flood
Agalloch - Ashes against the grain
Grace Cathedral Park - In the evenings of regret
Loving and saving this whole thread, I'll add in
Ones & Zeros, Vol. 1 - 3rdegree, not SUPER unique, but it's instrumental and commitment to they're concept album's theme of uploading your consciousness into the internet gives it a ton of charm!
Larks' Tongues In Aspic - King Crimson , very surprised I haven't seen this one in the thread, a classic weird ass prog album by the Kings of Prog themselves (IMO of course). They got a guy to do a bunch of random sounds for the album and he left to become a monk days before they started the album tour lol.
Future Shock by Herbie Hancock. Dude released like 25 jazz and funk albums over two decades, then in '83 just drops a hip hop bomb
Also, Dr. John - The Night Tripper. 60s psychedelic New Orleans perfection
‘Rockit’ was pretty much entirely made by the production team of Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn, from the band Material, with GrandMixer DXT and three other dudes doing the scratching. Hancock basically came in at the end to play some synth lines.
I came here to say Future shock. I just listened to it on the drive home.
