If It's Too Loud...

The upcoming Marianne Faithfull tribute album was an eclectic and unexpected list of artists including Cat Power with Iggy Pop, Peaches with Shirley Manson, Bush Tetras, Lydia Lunch, etc. The first single off the album is Tanya Donelly & the Parkington Sisters, which is more of an expected pairing, and Donelly and the Parkington Sisters covering Marianne Faithfull makes perfect sense. We loved their 2020 self-titled album, so even getting one more song from the quartet is fantastic. They cover Faithfull's "This Little Bird," and the cover is exquisite. Donelly's vocals have never been more haunting, and become even more so when harmonizing with the Parkington Sisters. The song is beautiful, but oddly discomforting at the same time.  Tanya Donelly says of the song: "Marianne’s voice has always been one of my favorite instruments, from childhood through today, and her music and spirit have been life-long inspirations. I wanted to cover “This Little Bird” for it...

I have to admit that I was completely unfamiliar with Mary Margaret O'Hara before listening to Tanya Donelly and the Parkington Sisters's cover of her song "You Will Be Loved Again." The original, from her 1988 album Miss America , is a gorgeously stripped down song, that is mostly just O'Hara's vocals with less instrumentation than you could believe possible. For Tanya Donelly and the Parkington Sisters's version, it's still a gorgeously stripped down song, with just the slightest increase in instruments, and purely mesmerizing harmonies between the group. It's the kind of cover that is so compelling, you'll be almost forced to go back and track down the original. Tanya Donelly says of the song: “I first heard Mary Margaret O’Hara on the Throwing Muses tour bus in 1988. When Ivo from 4AD gave us a cassette of her album  Miss America  ~ we instantly fell in love, and it’s my favorite to this day. ‘You Will Be Loved Again’ is one of the pu...

Unfortunately Tanya Donelly wasn't able to release a cover as part of her Sunday Series this week, but luckily this just happens to be the week that the first single from her upcoming covers album with the Parkington Sisters is out! As soon as this project was announced, I knew I couldn't wait to hear it. Donelly is a 90's alt-rock icon that has mellowed in the past twenty or so years, and The Parkington Sisters take traditional strings and harmonies and create some of the most uniquely original not-quite-traditional music out there. For the first single off their upcoming album, they're taking on The Go-Go's 1981 song "Automatic." The cover starts off with a lot more noise than I would have expected, but soon turns into a spot on traditional cover. That's not an easy feat, since The Go-Go's certainly weren't using traditional string instruments in 1981, but Tanya Donelly and The Parkington Sisters nail this cover perfectly. If this upcoming ...