Amanda Palmer never ceases to amaze her fans when it comes to her work ethic and music. Constantly bringing new ideas to the table, Palmer is a serious musical force to be reckoned with within the industry. Recently, in episode 9 of the podcast titled I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, which is run by Alice Isn’t Dead creator Joseph Fink and Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle, Palmer gave her incredible rendition of the song “The Mess Inside.” A video accompanying the Mountain Goats cover will be released early February. In the episode featuring Amanda Palmer, the trio discuss the early days of the Mountain Goats, the ideas of creating a cover of a song, and how music discovery has evolved over the years. Palmer offers her wisdom on the subject:
“There’s something weirdly challenging about covering the Mountain Goats because the very hallmark of these songs is how authentically no-frills and lo-fi the original recordings are, and it felt like it would be insulting to overproduce anything. I was walking to town one night in upstate New York with my musician friend Sxip Shirey and we were ticking off the projects we had on our to-do list, and I mentioned this covers project, and by 10pm that night we were in my kitchen playing ‘The Mess Inside’ together, and by 9am the next morning I’d roped in my violist friend Rachel who happened to be staying with us, and my two assistants sang back-up and clapped. We didn’t do more than 6 rehearsals in a row before we recorded the song in the backyard, high on the immediacy of it all…that felt like the right way to do it. And you can’t hear it on the recording, but we were also watching Coco Karol, Skip’s wife, dancing on the lawn with Rachel’s tiny baby in her arms, while we did the recording, because we also made a video of the take. Coco had just come through the darkness of a miscarriage, and as she danced with the tiny baby, ‘The Mess Inside’ took on a whole new meaning for everybody playing and singing. Music is amazing.”
If you are itching to hear all the covers curated so far, then look no further. Through Merge Records site you can pre-order the I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas album ahead of its release date on April 6 of this year. There is also a special vinyl version in which there will be two vinyl LPs, one in pink and the other in blue. If you pre-order, an exclusive I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats patch will be included and only 50 pre-orders will be randomly chosen to receive the aforementioned vinyl signed by lead singer John Darnielle.
Check out the cover below.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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