Paraorchestra: Brett Anderson and Nadine Shah cover ‘Holes’ by Mercury Rev
Deserter’s Songs may well be the most underrated record of all time. The Mercury Rev masterpiece hits upon a gentle profundity that purrs from the very beginning with the opener ‘Holes’. In the latest Paraorchestra release, Nadine Shah and Brett Anderson have offered their own stirring interpretation of that holy track.
Paraorchestra recruited Anderson and Charles Hazlewood to help rearrange the classic track before welcoming Shah for a duet. Her vocal prowess is evident immediately. She roars with a humbled grace and dignity bringing something epic to the already palatial instrumentation.
Fresh from the release of her latest album, Filthy Underneath, Shah is increasingly feeling comfortable with hitting a hymnal level of transcendence in her unleashed vocal style. This waxes and wanes perfectly with Anderson’s own sweet growl. The result puts ‘performance’ at the forefront of the arrangement.
Strings sweep serenely, staying faithful to the original sentiment and melody of the transcendent song. However, the Paraorchestra also bring something fresh to it. Somehow, their textured arrangement – and the fact it seems to have taken a step back from the vocals in the mix – imbues the anthem with a fitting feeling of looking back.
This is no ordinary gaze into the past, though, it is the sort you engage upon while looking out to the ocean. Of course, that is partly due to the strength of Jonathan Donahue’s emotive songwriting with Mercury Rev, but everyone involved treats that with an earnest sense of respect here, adding to the grandiosity of it all.
The song is taken from the forthcoming Paraorchestra album, Death Songbook, which sees them also team up with the likes of Gwenno and Seb Rochford to re-imagine tracks from Echo & The Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, Skeeter Davis, Jacques Brel and many more.
You can listen to the anthemic effort below. Be warned: it may inexplicably whisk you back to a conversation you had in Majorca in 2004 or some other innocuous memory that is suddenly embellished with poetic sapience.
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