As cover versions go, Jono McCleery‘s suffused and elegiac interpretation of Black‘s seminal 80s hit, ‘Wonderful Life’, is certainly an esoteric one. Soporific in mood, with more than enough space to project a meditative sized ‘holy mountain’ through the low sonorous vibraphone-rich composition drifts and whispers that lurk around McCleery’s interesting style of lyrical phrasing – in part influenced by such notable innovative troubadours as Nick Drake.
His own tunes, Garden and Raise Me, are equally resourceful in the vocal department: full of bountiful syllable-stretching and indolent swoons. The original fashioned Garden – a tearing Nordic terse eulogy – is remixed into a fidget-house majestic ride by Seiji. McCleery’s producer, Fybe, remixes Raise Me, turning it into a haunting, glitchy and skipping CD effect, ‘ghost-in-the-machine’, laudation.
The forthcoming There Is LP – penciled in for September 2011- sounds like it could be an intriguing prospect on the strength of this inventive single.
27/6/2011
[Rating:3.5]
