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The Music of Pixar’s Elio, Created by a Choir of Wooden Dolls

Ok so this is weird and delightful. Swedish electronics company Teenage Engineering makes a collection of singing wooden dolls called the Choir. The dolls are basically speakers but with some autonomy and personality…and they can work together:

what you see are eight wooden dolls, made to serenade you with a repertoire of choral classics as well as perform your own original compositions through midi over ble. each member has their own characteristic vocal range. individually one can sing a dynamic solo, together they perform an immersive a cappella concert.

Teen Eng Choir

Composer Rob Simonsen used three Choirs together to help create the score for Elio, the newest Pixar movie that takes place in space.

we were looking for an otherworldly sound—something that sounded relatable, that echoed vocalizations, communication that humans could understand, but felt like it was from another world. i came across these choir dolls and heard their sound. it was beautiful — electronic, but human. each body is handcrafted. they have a robotic but organic sound at the same time. it felt like a perfect answer to what we were looking for.

In this interview with Simonsen, he talks about working with the Choir to create the movie’s sound; the relevant part starts at the 15:20 mark and includes some of the music they composed with it.

There’s a flip flop element to this too: they mic’d up the dolls to record the audio, just like they would with human performers.

Here’s another short clip of the Choir in action:

Like I said, weird and delightful. You can get your own full ensemble from Teenage Engineering for about $2000.

See also Dueling Carls, which this reminded me of for some reason.

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