According to NME, Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave has praised American psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips’ cover of his song with the Bad Seeds titled “Girl In Amber.” The cover was recorded with Nell Smith, a 13-year-old fan of The Flaming Lips.
“Girl In Amber” originally appeared on the band’s sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, which dropped in September 2016. The cover will appear on Where The Viaduct Looms, a cover album by The Flaming Lips that will feature songs by Nick Cave. The album will serve as a collaboration with Smith and is expected to drop on October 25.
In regards to the cover, Cave fully approves. Apparently, Cave was made aware of the cover by a fan, which prompted him to react to the cover on his site The Red Hand Files.
“I didn’t know about this project, so thank you for alerting me to it,” reads Cave’s response. “I have a whole lot of time for The Flaming Lips — really like a lot of their stuff, have been an admirer since watching them play most evenings on the Lollapalooza Festival tour in ’94, maybe even sang with them there, and wrote a song for one of their records. This version of ‘Girl in Amber’ is just lovely, I was going to say Nell Smith inhabits the song, but that’s wrong, rather she vacates the song, in a way that I could never do. I always found it difficult to step away from this particular song and sing it with its necessary remove, just got so twisted up in the words, I guess. Nell shows a remarkable understanding of the song, a sense of dispassion that is both beautiful and chilling. I just love it. I’m a fan.”
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat
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