We reckon it’s fair to say that autotune isn’t an effect that appeals to absolutely everyone.

The robotic treatment has become somewhat ubiquitous over the last few years, and as expected there are more than enough detractors to shout loudly about how it’s the scourge of modern pop. Thankfully, Portland purveyor of audio oddness Phil Elverum (he of Microphones/Mount Eerie fame) has a soft spot for the technique, and has come up with a rather bizarre application for it.

Last year’s duo of albums Clear Moon and Ocean Roar were brilliant explorations into a gloomier mode for Elverum, and he’s decided to revisit them both, with the assistance of autotune. New album Pre-Human Ideas takes a record’s worth of songs from both LPs and finds Elverum reworking them with his voice embellished with that unmistakable sound.

We know what you’re probably thinking, but you need to bear with Elverum a little on this and check the leaked single ‘Lone Bell’ which has been transformed from a Badalamenti-influenced gloomy ballad into something that sounds as if it could have been a bonus track on Kanye West‘s groundbreaking 808s and Heartbreak.

Pre-Human Ideas will be released on November 12 via P.W. Elverum & Sun. [via Pitchfork]

Tracklist:

01 Organs (from Pale Lights)
02 No Inside, No Out
03 I Say “No”
04 The Hidden Stone
05 The Place Lives
06 The Place I Live
07 Lone Bell
08 House Shape
09 Clear Moon
10 Yawning Sky
11 Ocean Roar
12 Organs (from The Place Lives)