Video: Frida Hyvönen and Jenny Wilson, “Shadow of a Doubt” (Sonic Youth Cover)
- story Matthew Schnipper
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.
Related:
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- Video: Jenny Wilson, “Like a Fading Rainbow” (Van Rivers Remix)
- Jenny Wilson Live at the Levi’s/FADER Fort NYC
- Freeload: Sonic Youth, “Sacred Trickster”
- The FADER Issue 62 Audio: Crocodiles, DJ Sega, Sleepy D, CFCF, Phoenix, Major Lazer, Amadou and Mariam, Foreign Born, Wavves, Young Dro, Dum Dum Girls, Rapid Youth, Popo, Esser, Jenny Wilson, Trudgers, No Paws No Lions, Ancient Crux, Maluca, Omega, Twin Lion
- posted on Aug 26, 2009 in MUSIC, MUSIC VIDEO
- tags Frida Hyvönen, Jenny Wilson, rock, Sonic Youth
August 29th, 2009 at 11:32 am
entirely disagree with the perspective of fader’s commmentary.
actually seems quite a lazy and passionless rendition to me, the xylophone is an easy jump (guitar sounds just the same). is the last metaphor in the video’s caption a joke?