A scientific tool for those lacking a voice, a means for encrypting voices during WWII and a way to drop the funk, the vocoder has had many exhale its praises. Here are five essential vocoder tracks.

Versatile sounds, from creamy synths to aggressive and percussive. Perfectly suited to ambient generative music projects and for adding evolving textures to songs.

Today he’s back with a very different offering. “Vocoder,” the first new Floating Points single since Promises, finds Shepherd returning to the realm of heady, frenetic club music.