Those who know us chapter-and-verse know we are vocoder-averse. Same as it ever was. Only a couple of artists have been able to overcome that soul-sucking machine and, with evidence released today, one of them is rising star Moses Sumney.  Sumney has been turning ears with his sensational, yet measured, vocals and guitar playing, while gaining notoriety through contributions to cuts by the likes of James Blake, Andrew Bird, Hundred Waters, Mocky, etc.

Today Sumney has released his tour-de-vocoder via a new Allie Avital-directed video for song Worth It. You’ll hear that there can be beauty in that vocoder beast. Afterwards check out Sumney’s quintessential Everlasting Sigh (lyrics at bottom) with its Sufjan-Does-Broadway motif and Sumney’s scintillating vocals. Totally worth it.

People: a star is being born.

Everlasting Sigh:

“Sighing on the embers of a fire
That must be allowed to die
The bed of coal, it must run cold in time
But your body heat brings life

Crying in a river running dry
Made your eyes a clouded sky
But if you’re a god
Made from a God
Made from a god
Let your whispered word be divine
If vultures can be soul birds, let it die
Leaning on the everlasting sigh

Creator, you create monstrous men
From the ink that clots your pen
Running on a sentence that must end
So your bones can rise again

If vultures can be soul birds, let it die
Leaning on the everlasting sigh”