listen to Lou Reed's 'Berlin' reimagined by Clint Mansell & Clint Walsh
Film composer and former Pop Will Eat Itself frontman Clint Mansell has released a track-for-track cover of Lou Reed‘s 1973 album Berlin, with help from friend and musician Clint Walsh. It was made as a tribute to Mansell’s girlfriend Heather who died in 2014. “In ‘Levels Of Life’, author Julian Barnes lists the ‘lasts’ he shared with his wife before her death. The last film Heather and I watched together was the Julian Schnabel film of Lou Reed performing ‘Berlin‘ live at St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn in 2006,” Mansell writes in a statement about the album.
Mansell continues: “Reimagining this music, with musician and producer Clint Walsh – a friend who became a great friend through this experience – is part of what lifted me over a wall of grief that I had previously been unable to climb. So this is dedicated to Heather, and Lou, with love.”
Walsh adds, “The mere idea of changing anything from the original work risks coming across as arrogant or audacious. Respect for its author, as well as those who have inspired it, is etched into every detail of this tribute. Through overwhelming grief, heartbreak and loss, the journey of our record is its own story to tell.The same things that cause pain can be the same things that heal. Sometimes, the only way out is through.”
The Clints’ versions of the Berlin songs are pretty far from the originals, sounding like they could’ve come out in 1988 — from glistening jangle-pop to synthpop and orchestral swells. You can listen to the whole album below.
In other news: Lou Reed’s 1988 album New York is getting a deluxe reissue with 26 unreleased tracks.
