It’s not often that I feature multiple cover songs from the same artist, but it’s not every day that I encounter an artist who does such an impressive job interpreting others’ tunes.
London-based singer-songwriter Saint Saviour (aka Rebecca Jones) started in the electro band The RGBs before joining Groove Armada and collaborating on the dance duo’s 2010 album, Black Light. Now stepping out as a solo artist, Saint Saviour released her debut album, Union, this past summer.
While Saint Saviour’s original material merits a listen, she’s also recorded and shared several covers that have captured my attention, including this very special trio below.
For her most recent cover, released on Friday, Saint Saviour transforms Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” from outsized epic to something much more intimate, even childlike, in scope. It doesn’t hurt that the phrasing in her talky bit reminds me of T’Pau’s “Heart And Soul.”
I featured The Knocks’ fantastic, beat-happy cover of M83’s “Midnight City” earlier this year, but Saint Saviour easily makes the case for welcoming another interpretation. Her hushed take occupies the space where Kate Bush and Prince intertwine:
Conjuring some Dionne Warwick alongside Kate Bush for her cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence,” Saint Saviour also quite amazingly inserts a bit of Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls.” Her funereal take on the English synthpop band’s 1990 #8 single becomes utterly transcendent at the halfway mark:
Free downloads of Saint Saviour – “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” (Bonnie Tyler cover), “Midnight City” (M83 cover), and “Enjoy The Silence” (Depeche Mode cover) via the players above.
There’s more where these three came from. Visit Saint Saviour’s SoundCloud page for her covers of Mazzy Star, David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Neil Young, as well as a slew of original material.