At the start of each year there are the usual polls put together by the music press to tell us who we will be listening to over the next twelve months. It’s always interesting to follow the careers of the chosen ones, to see which out of them will measure up, and which will fade into oblivion. 2015 saw a lot of people talking about SOAK, a sixteen year old Irish born singer-songwriter, who also answers to the name of Bridie Monds-Watson. She started the year off well with a handful of fantastic singles. But it’s hard to tell how someone will pan-out until you hear the debut album, which in this case is ‘Before we forgot how to dream’ which is due to land on the 29th of May.
Leading up to the release of the album, she gives us this brand new version of St. Vincent’s ‘Digital Witness’. Choosing songs to cover can often be a risky business. It needs to be a song that the artist put their own spin on, but also one they can do justice to. One wrong move, and there can be a backlash from fans of the original artist. SOAK has chosen to take on an artist that the whole of the UK is loving right now. The original version of the track features on St. Vincent’s self-titled latest album; a collection of songs that topped much of the music press’s albums of the year in 2014. Did SOAK really think this through before she decided to take on such a much loved track?
Well, she has done the only thing she could possibly do; she has changed it up and made it her own. Whilst the original is an erratic, funky little number, this version has a much more acoustic sound. The tempo has been taken down. The jazz horns have been replaced by more whimsical guitar riffs. Her unique vocals give it her own spin.
This is a great little warmer to keep fans happy until the release of the album. Covers should only be done if they can be done well; and guess what? This is.
