This is the first vinyl pressing of The Flowers Of Hells classic covers album Odes that is so good that Lou Reed played three of the songs on his radio program. Originally released in 2012 this was a collaborative effort with Greg Jarvis enlisted the help of among others Abi Fry, Neil "Hamilton" Wilkinson, Ivo Pospisil and is produced by Peter J. Moore.
The A-side opens with Avery Island-1st April that slowly fades in with strings, trumpets on a neo-classical intro to the album.
Things turn darker as Atmosphere slowly re-works the Joy Division classic with a healthy dose of the string section from Lou Reeds Street Hassle, as you feel like you might just slip away, as I assume Abi Fry's glacial tones add something different to the vocals.
Muchomurky Bile is a cover of a song by The Plastic People of The Universe the revolutionary band from Czechoslovakia and amazingly isn't on one of the 8 albums by the band I own, this is gently evocative and features Abi Fry singing with Ivo Pospisil from the Plastic People.
Walk On The Wild Side is about the gentlest cover of the song I've heard, this is far prettier than my favorite cover by Gerty Molzen and is certainly less sleazy than Duffo's take on it. This has glorious strings making this the least wild sounding call to go take that walk.
Run Run Run is a slow noir jazz instrumental take on the Velvet Undergrounds song for scoring drugs, with some Chet Baker style trumpet over the string section that all revolves around the constant bassline, I love the way the organ comes into play on this super smoky version that eventually freaks out as the guitars come in.
The Last Beat Of My Heart takes the Siouxie & The Banshees song treating it like it's a 18th century classical song that ought to be sung in a cathedral, it's wispy fragile and filled with beauty.
Mr Tambourine Man is played at a similar pace to Odetta's peerless version, only this is encased in strings rather than an acoustic guitar, it does get to the dark heart of the song in ways that The Byrds entirely missed. As this builds and falls it becomes a quite spine tingling version.
Super Electric takes the Stereolab classic and strips out all the electronic gadgetry to turn it into a magisterial vehicle of chamber pop loveliness.
O Superheroin is a brilliant mash-up of The Velvet Undergrounds Heroin and Laurie Andersons Oh Superman that uses Lauries tune and vocoder drenched vocals that make the lyrics about everyday life of a Heroin addict come to live in a quite remarkable way as it weaves in some of the Oh Superman lyrics, as the stark reality of the junkies life becomes clear, this is a masterful marriage of two songs by artists who were married to each other.
Over & Over is a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, as a very Fleetwood Mac averse reviewer I have no memory of hearing the original, I'm not about to listen to it, but this is starkly beautiful slow sepulchral love song.
The album closes with a version of The Carpenters classic Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft that while not a sugary as the original is the closest of any of these covers to the original and this version has some gentle trumpet and strings as well as a slow building central section, this is a lot prettier than Babes in Toyland's cover and ends with the sweeping strings taking us out to that spaceship.
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