Cover art by S.Hansen
It was my birthday this weekend and I went out on a limb earlier in the week for a last minute HUGE favor from some close musician friends to do covers of some of my favorite songs or songs I thought the musician would do a cover of really well and surprisingly they agreed….20 of them! So here are the first 5:
Benoit Pioulard covers Hum: This is absolutely stunning, Benoit has a voice that i’d want to have if I could sing. I heard once that Benoit liked Hum so I asked him to cover a song by them and everyone should be more glad with this outcome.
Corbu covers Colder: This one was a touchy song since its probably one of my favorite songs of all time but I didn’t want an all electronic or post rock group to cover it so I asked Brooklyn’s experimental guitar duo to do it right and they did by taking it to a very unique and detailed level that i’m sure you’ll enjoy.
Alex Cornell covers Empire Of The Sun: You know him from his phenomenal work and posts on the blog and if you haven’t already seen him on youtube then here’s a very fine example of what he’s capable of creating musically.
A Setting Sun covers Tracy Chapman: A Setting Sun probably had the most challenging and off the radar cover to do but I thought a brighter doom metal approach might the only thing that would make this matchless pair up work and he killed it, especially check out how he gets to the end which is surprising after you hear the first few seconds.
Shigeto covers Boards Of Canada: This one is out there, as some of you may know Shigeto is a drummer that makes beats similar to Dabrye meets Caribou or something of that nature but loves to experiment so I thought why not see what he could do with a Boards Of Canada song since I know he’ll try to get crazy with it and not steer towards the guitar angle which I had to hear.
DOWNLOAD THE COVERS EP FOR FREE HERE
I hope you enjoy and collect them all. 5 more coming up next week.
Jay Bodley aka A Setting Sun has been on the blog before with his cover of Air’s Le Soleil Est Pres de Moi but that sound is far different from what he’s brewing which is more of a textured doom metal that you’d find from an artist like Ulver with hints of what a non-metal fan would call beautiful. Raspberry is a song that could be split up into multiple sections where you start off with the unforgiving coldness of the intro and lets you enjoy a bit of familiar acoustic guitar and then fades into an almost ceremonial muted brother of the intro, its grey yet ends on a restful feeling that everything has calmed down.
The mysterious grace that Johann Johannsson shares with us reminds me of what a mad man would hide from anyone that feared him to not show that he has such a passionate side. Think if Tangerine Dream had to make a dark classical piece with Jan Jelinek without beats or glitches.
The label Kranky can never do me wrong, you dig in their back catalog and just find treasures and one song that I found from this Christopher Bissonnette LP made me happy that there were such things as good A+R.
Tim Hecker is a hero in my mind to lo-fi ambient, if I ever drowned this better be playing so its as bittersweet as I could ever imagine it being.
Take your time with these songs if you really want to enjoy them, if this sound isn’t something you usually listen to then I suggest listening to it alone, yet close to you but not overwhelming yourself. Try listening to it as background sound quietly then try listening to it noticing every detail, you might realize how much goes into making this sound appealing.
You may see Alex/HeadUp once in a while commenting on the blog, he put together a wonderful ambient mix from various albums from the Moodgadget catalog. His Quiet Storm like narration complements the ambient electronic like a missing NPR show, it’s definitely a nice collection of songs to play in the background while you work or sleep, hope you enjoy it.
1 Entsounds – The Winding Sun (Arc Edit) – Growth EP
2 Praveen – Tour Around This House – Expanse At Low Levels
3 Shigeto – May – New Crossings
4 Calmer – Open Source – Past Is Present
5 A Setting Sun – Views From The Real World – No New Enemies Vol. 1
6 Viul – Wound Cotton Wound (Exerpt) – Summer’s Wet Work is Done
7 Tstewart – What’s This Color? – No New Enemies Vol. 1
8 A Setting Sun & Shigeto – Polaroid Romance – Table For Two
9 Kyle Bobby Dunn – Mobiles (There is No End) (Exerpt) – Fervency
10 Tokyo Bloodworm – Found Memories of Nature – The Rorschach Suite
11 Entsounds – Dormancy – The Growth EP
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
Moodcast – Ambient Edition
[audio:ambientmoodcast.mp3]
