Bartees Strange has long cited TV On The Radio is a primary musical influence, and now he’s gone ahead and covered the indie-rock favorites: Today, he teamed up with Eric Slick and Ohmme for a rendition of “Province,” recorded as part of a singles series from Sylvan Esso’s new label, Psychic Hotline.
Strange said in a statement, “I’ll never forget when I found TVOTR. I saw their performance on Letterman while channel surfing. I jumped out of my bed. They gave me somebody to look up to. I don’t think I really knew what I wanted to do musically until I saw them. That was a big deal for me.”
Slick, meanwhile, went into detail about how the recording came to be, saying:
“Bartees and I started talking earlier this year. I loved his album and there seemed to be some interest in working together. We talked about our admiration for TV On The Radio. I was driving around one day and thought about how much I listened to Return To Cookie Mountain in 2006, and how it was a formative record for me. It’s such a strange and simultaneously straightforward album. I made a basic acoustic cover of their song ‘Province’ and from there Bartees added his vocal take. Then I reached out to Ohmme, one of my favorite bands from Chicago. Sima and Macie added some ethereal swells and tied the whole song together. Then I removed all of the rough tracks and built a more modern structure underneath with Mellotron, Moog, and MPC. I’m so excited about the way it came out, and I am deeply inspired by what Bartees and Ohmme brought to the table.”
Listen to Strange, Slick, and Ohmme’s cover of “Province” above.
