smush Covers Norah Jones

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Photo by Henry Wilson

I certainly wasn't expecting to hear a shoegaze cover of Norah Jones' megahit "Don't Know Why," but at least this one was a pleasant surprise. New York City's smush has released a cover of the iconic track in their own style. It might seem like a wild choice, but smush are on the poppier side of shoegaze, so it works quite well. It's a fitting cover version that stays true to the original while adding enough of their own style to make it worthwhile. It's a pretty, midtempo version of the original, heavily layered in fuzz and electronic sounding noise. Emily Borrowman's vocals truly add the pop element to the song, and only brings even more beauty out of the cover.

smush says of their latest single:

"’Don't Know Why’ is a really special song for us because it always reminds us of New York City. When we first started working on our cover of this classic we hadn't yet moved to NYC and it would always bring to mind thoughts of Norah Jones there at the start of her career. To us it seemed like she had found an indescribable magic in that place and it was very inspirational to us at the time. Since moving here, we have found something similarly special and this is our way of saying ‘thank you.’" 

You can listen to smush's version of "Don't Know Why" below. standard, an all covers EP, is due out on February 20 and is available for pre-order through Bandcamp. For more on smush, check out the band on Instagram.

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