FIVE COVERS, by PRETTY BEUYS

FIVE COVERS

by PRETTY BEUYS

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Streaming + Download

Purchasable with gift card

1.	WIN 04:37	info	download
2.	PERMAFROST 03:23	info	download
3.	CALIFORNIA 03:54	info	download
4.	SUSPICIOUS MINDS 04:26	info	download
5.	WALK ON THE WILD SIDE 05:13	info	download

about

Pretty Beuys is the pop / sound art collaboration of Robert Bolton aka Arowbe Arowbe Arowbe (vocals) and Andrew Zealley aka PSBEUYS (music). Their first release, an EP appropriately titled Five Covers is a series of impressions—riffing on a variety of sonic wellsprings ranging from Joni Mitchell to Elvis Presley to post-punk outfit Magazine. In the latter of these, Mr. Bolton admits to recording the vocals without having heard the original song. “Just Google and sing,” he says about the process of improvising melodies from imagination and memory. “For more familiar songs likes Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side,’ I’d converse with them, respond to the original text.” In reproducing the music for such cover songs, Mr. Zealley would take a “snapshot” approach, listening just once to a thirty-second iTunes sample of the song, grabbing a reference point and developing the track from that glimpse. “In each instance, language and vocal performance dictated the musical direction over and above actual references to original melodies or rhythmic gestures,” says Mr. Zealley.

The style, while earnest in it’s salute to the referenced recordings, quickly turns urgent and unsentimental. The lyrics function in a cloud rather than their original linear form—they’re left open for rearrangement, mutation, and variant paths. Says Mr. Bolton, “the approach of these covers is cubist in it’s collaging and refracting of dimensions, but more transcendent, like the ghosty information age.”

watch the video for WIN (COVER BEUYS MIX):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jcAO_jVP_s&feature=related

watch the video for PERMAFROST (COVER BEUYS MIX):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7A8K9hk71s

watch the video for CALIFORNIA (COVER BEUYS MIX):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbrnjmOoByM

watch the video for SUSPICIOUS MINDS (COVER BEUYS MIX):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=velzsl5_woI

watch the video for WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (COVER BEUYS MIX):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPi3cUOpots

credits

released March 20, 2011

PRETTY BEUYS: FIVE COVERS
produced by PSBEUYS

WIN by David Bowie (1975)
PERMAFROST by Howard Devoto (1979)
CALIFORNIA by Joni Mitchell (1971)
CALIFORNIA by Tupac Shakur (1995)
SUSPICIOUS MINDS by Mark James (1968)
WALK ON THE WIDE SIDE by Lou Reed (1972)

no permission, no nothing
"public image ltd would like to thank absolutely no body, thank you"

FIVE COVERS (2011)
www.robertbolton.net
www.andrewzealley.com