Great comments. It should be noted that this blog is primarily concerned with the western pop idiom which in itself is not necessarily a wholly classical interpretation of harmony but is decidedly not Eastern or ethnic.

Perhaps the title is misleading or sensationalizing in that it suggests (in quotes) that locrian doesn’t exist when clearly it does from an academic perspective and to non-Western classically-rooted ears.

However, it’d be a bit like correcting a pop producer for saying a singer is flat by saying “Well, in India they have microtonality, so technically he’s not flat, he’s just singing a non-Western note.”

Another comment I wanted to make about this post is that since it only takes two notes to establish a chord (the first and third) locrian mode could exist with just a minor chord on the root, omitting the fifth.

You could argue that it doesn’t exist because when you go to the V there is no tendency tone to lead you back to i, but then that is also the case in a true aeolian mode as well, which I think we all agree exists in all idioms.

Excellent response. I agree that Locrian mode exists, although I’m not hearing it i your example. Maybe I’m missing the semitone shift you’re talking about, but I just hear Ionian with te (b7) added near the very end (parallel Mixo). It also makes sense that non-Westerners might be more able to hear something as Locrian. I read somewhere that some Eastern cultures reported hearing minor scales as happy and major scales as sad, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

http://www.tht.co.il/voice10.asp

In the second clip from the bottom (http://yeshiva.kivun.org.il/voice/j-005.mp3), the cantor begins in major (Ionian), before shifting the tonic down exactly one semitone in order to enter Locrian mode. Far from being riff-like, this mode has a dominant (on the third). This is the primary mode of prayer for Moroccan Jews, as has been attested by A.Z. Idelsohn, and other communities use it as well.
One could also analyze it as Mixolydian ending on the major third. For some ears, it is certainly that way. After all, the dominant third of this particular Locrian mode is also the dominant fifth on Mixolydian. Even so, the prayer is firmly locked on Locrian as the tonic.