Cassandra Jenkins covers Animal Collective & Vashti Bunyan's "It's You" (listen)
Under the Radar magazine is celebrating its 20th anniversary with Covers of Covers, a compilation that features a bunch of their favorite artists covering songs by artists who have graced the cover the mag. They’ve just shared Cassandra Jenkins‘ cover of Animal Collective & Vashti Bunyan‘s “It’s You” which is from their collaborative 2005 EP, Prospect Hummer. Cassandra does a gorgeous version, with her voice sounding marvelous against swirling harp.
“Covers are a great way to experiment with sounds, palettes, and people I want to work with,” says Cassandra. “Harpist Rebecca El-Saleh and I did some e-mail recording during quarantine and this was the first time we got to play in a room together, with Zubin Hensler engineering. I had been listening to a lot of Curtis Mayfield at the time and loved some of the harp usage in his recording, and felt like the harp was one of the few acoustic instruments that could capture something similar to the original recording. Michael Coleman added some piano, and I used field recordings from the house where I’ve been living for a good part of this year.”
Also shared today from Covers of Covers: Peter Bjorn and John‘s cover of The Divine Comedy‘s “Songs of Love” which was on 1996’s Casanova and was also the theme for British sitcom Father Ted. It’s a radically different than the baroque, harpsichord-powered original. “Suddenly I realized The Divine Comedy/Neil Hannon wrote the theme tune for the Irish-English sitcom classic ‘Father Ted’, a perennial favorite of mine,” says PB&J’s Peter Morén. “This madcap mid-’90s series about three bonkers Catholic priests on a remote, fictitious island called Craggy Island, hit me hard when it ran late night on TV in Sweden. Apparently it’s been banned in the United States and voted second best British comedy after Fawlty Towers, by some poll in 2019. On a tour of (you guessed it) Ireland I got the DVD box-set and pained the rest of the band with it on the bus TV (though our British crew got it). Long story, but I thought we might as well have a go at it. Bingo! A few jammed out, slightly psychedelic PB&J-angled takes with some added vibraphone and tape-echo and there you have it. We then thought… well the song DOES have a lyric, looked it up, and sang it. A good set of words too… nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Doyle or ecumenical matters. Thanks Neil for writing it, and thanks Under the Radar for the opportunity.”
You can listen to both covers below.
Cover of Covers will be out March 4, 2022 via American Laundromat and $1 from every album sale will be donated to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. Check out the full tracklist here.
Animal Collectitve’s new album Painting With is out this week.
