I don't like overdubs, never liked them.
I always layer my vocals a lot. I sing a minimum of three layers of the same line every time, and then it's always one or two or sometimes even more harmonies.
Enya is a very matriarchal musical force. Her music is very feminine and she layers her voice a lot. It leaks into my music secretly on the side. There's a lot of lush layers of my voice hiding in the cracks.
We've recorded over our voices once and double the harmonies, make them thick. The Four Freshmen do that.
I can hit baritone notes, and I can sing in the soprano range if I wanted to. I did this thing a long time ago where I did a duet with myself. I sound like two different people.
I grew up writing songs in my room on GarageBand, and I would make the beats just out of layering my vocals over and over again. Very Imogen Heap-inspired.
I had some really great experiences doing overdubs.
There's nothing I love more in the world than layering voices.
I do some three-part harmonies on 'Throes of Rejection' and 'Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks,' but I didn't go overboard with it.
I usually like to hide my vocals behind the music. I don't like to hide them consciously, but I have a tendency to prefer the vocal at the same level as everything else and put lots of reverb on it.
I don't think my vocals demand effects. I like reverb to a certain extent, but I don't want to hide my voice. I like stripped-down vocals, but I also like crazy, powerful, doubled vocals like in dance or electronic music.
Vocal arrangements are something I'm working a lot with for the new songs.
I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that more instruments, or more vocal tracks, harmony, or double tracking the voice, is a good thing. People do their early albums very stripped down, then each album becomes bloated.
