Sunday, September 20th, 2009

"When You Sleep"

The Antlers cover My Bloody Valentine

Photo By Chris ShontingChris ShontingHaving now gotten to the point where I can listen to The Antlers’ Hospice without having a panic attack – mostly – I’ve set about checking out some of their earlier recordings via the interwebs. Beyond that latest record the trio are mostly a tabula rasa to me, so there’s no real reason for me to be surprised that they’ve done a My Bloody Valentine cover… but I was.

And yet the way they’ve reinterpreted it makes perfect sense. Replacing Kevin Shields’ trademark “glide” guitar with heavily effected slide maintains the original’s wobbly intent without resorting to mimicry and Peter Silberman’s hazy, quaaluded vocals come at the dream-pop standard from a different angle. Fresh, yet faithful. Best I can tell, this recording was never part of a formal release, just one of those things that trickles out online from the ether. And thank goodness for that.

The Antlers are on the road and will be in Toronto on Thursday evening for two performances – an in-store at Criminal Records at 6PM and a headlining show at the Horseshoe later that night. Either/or/both highly recommended. You can stream a session with the band at KDHX. The touring portion of the My Bloody Valentine reunion has mostly wound down, with just a single festival appearance in December remaining, so hopefully they’ll get to dealing with those long-promised reissues, unreleased and new material. Yeah, right.

MP3: The Antlers – “When You Sleep”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “When You Sleep” (live in San Francisco 2008)

By : Frank Yang at 9:34 am
Category: Chromewaves Radio

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  1. 9/20/09 9:43 am

     Kirstiecat says:

    Woah…this is weird twisted stuff…it seems like if you were playing MBV in the middle of the night with a really warped record or turn table. It has the essence of MBV’s original but at the same time is so distorted in a atypical way that it’s very strange sounding.

    In regards to Hospice, I still have not experienced the impact that most fans have with that record. Of course, it’s partly because I don’t actually own it. I listened to songs on myspace and saw a few at Pfork Music Festival while I was photographing them and nothing really hit me like the way people talk about it. It’s possible that because it seems like it might be very conceptual based it would be better to listen to the whole thing with the songs in their originally released order but I guess I just feel like this is one of those cases with timing…I may be ready for it at a different time of my life is all.

  2. 9/20/09 9:46 am

     Frank Yang says:

    I hope you never have to be able to relate to the record in the way that I now can. The timing of it was/is creepy – I was going to see them with Frightened Rabbit in July, but had to bail to go home as we were moving my father to a hospice the next day. No lie, even the sight of that record made me shudder for weeks after it was over.

  3. 9/20/09 1:51 pm

     alison says:

    Frank,

    I know how you feel. My mother passed in a hospice not too long ago. It took a while for me to make the plunge and buy the record based on the info I had about it. I finally got it a month or two ago. The music is beautiful and the lyrics are amazing, although hard to listen to. I definitely think that it’s one of the best of the year.
    Thanks for posting this MBV cover. It’s pretty cool. Great blog!

    Best,
    Alison

  4. 9/20/09 2:28 pm

     Robert Loerzel says:

    Thanks for posting this, Frank. Coincidentally, I was in the middle of listening to “Hospice” just now when I saw your post. I really love the record. I’m hoping to see them Monday night in Chicago if my schedule permits.
    Robert

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