Video: Frida Hyvönen and Jenny Wilson, “Shadow of a Doubt” (Sonic Youth Cover)

August 26, 2009


Today is cover day on TheFADER.com. And like The XX's reworking of "Do You Mind," Frida Hyvönen and Jenny Wilson completely make over Sonic Youth's quietly aggressive track "Shadow of a Doubt," all the way back from 1986's Evol, translating the guitar line into xylophone and the heavy bass racket into thick piano. Both women have very delicate voices, something Kim Gordon has never had, never needed to have, and their Scandinavian harmonizing of her sly confrontation transforms it completely, making it not a cover so much as a tribute. The video's setting furthers that—the original clip is a simple shot of Gordon riding a train, her body still but continually moving, shot in pungent green and red. Hyvönen and Wilson, like they've retrieved the song from hell, play studiously in some sunny suburban mansion, bathed in a bright white light we have to stare into while they turn their backs to it.

Video: Frida Hyvönen and Jenny Wilson, “Shadow of a Doubt” (Sonic Youth Cover)