Sharon Van Etten took the stage for a special cover of LCD Soundsystem’s 2007 track “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” earlier this month. Etten was backed by the Heritage Orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the annual concert series BBC Proms. The performance was recorded for the show “New York: Sound of a City,” where various artists from the city were invited to join the Heritage Orchestra under Jules Buckley.
Van Etten has kept busy in the meantime. She released a remixed and remastered version of her 2009 debut album Because I Was in Love late last year, along with a cover of “The End of the World” for the conceptual soundtrack to Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle. In 2016, she released “Not Myself,” a tribute to the victims of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. According to a letter written by Van Etten, she was at home in New Jersey when she heard the news of the nightclub shooting. Originally, she was going to raise money for the victims and their family, but ended up writing the song to help raise money and support the goals laid out by Everytown for Gun and Safety Support Fund. Also that year, Van Etten flexed her acting muscles, appearing in five episodes of season 1 of the Netflix drama The OA . According to NPR, Van Etten had decided to take a break from music and immerse herself in “real life.” She had plans to go back to college to become therapist. However, she received a call from a casting agent for the Netflix show that had seen her open for Nick Cave and thought she’d be perfect for the part of Rachel.
Watch her cover of “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” below.
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat