Earlier today, Regina Spektor premiered her rendition of The Beatles classic, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. The track will feature in upcoming animated stop motion movie, Kubo and the Two Strings, which comes to theaters August 19th.
Spektor’s cover simultaneously remains faithful to both George Harrison’s original track and the film’s overall score, arranged by Golden Globe winning composer Dario Marianelli (Atonement). The resultant production merges characteristically minimalistic vocals, Andrew Bird-like violin, and traditional Japanese instrumentation into a surprisingly cohesive track. Spektor mirrors Harrison’s vocals note for note, toning down her more idiosyncratic qualities to approximate his vocal patterns. This allows the bizarrely moving instrumentation to shine through, with chugging violins and classical keyboards working in perfect unison with Japanese flutes and chimes.
Marianelli’s score itself features no additional guest vocalists. Instead, he adds cinematic sweep to vocal-less Japanese orchestration, likely to allow the film’s dialogue to take center stage. The album, released via Warner Brothers, is currently available on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon.
In July, Spektor announced that she will release her seventh album, Remember Us to Life, on September 30. She debuted new single, “Bleeding Heart”, to accompany her album release date announcement. Her previous album, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats, received mixed critical acclaim. Listen to her cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” below.
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