Black Marble will release an EP of cover songs entitled “I Must Be Living Twice” due out August 14th via Sacred Bones Records. In advance of the upcoming effort, Chris Stewart has released a video for Wire‘s “In Manchester” directed by Scott Kiernan. Discussing the track, Stewart offers:
“I was initially drawn to the idea of covering ‘In Manchester’ because of the lyrics, which, for me, paint compartmentalized impressionistic snapshots of time and place. Some are more clear and feel like specific street scenes. Some are more oblique, but still feel grounded by the ‘In Manchester’ chorus.
Manchester is a stone city more akin to the feel of a Northeast American city. As someone who’s been recently living on the West Coast, I miss the storytelling backdrop of these more old-world feeling places. I felt connected to the song through that, and started by introducing a bit more of an off-kilter feel with the underlying synth pad at the outset.
Perhaps on this day, things are even a bit more uncertain than in the original. From there I figured if I just stayed true to the general outline, some impressions of my own songwriting would creep in and I just hoped and trusted that the results would be complementary.”
“I Must Be Living Twice” was recorded by Stewart “as a way to come down from the process of writing and recording his 2019 LP Bigger Than Life (Sacred Bones). Having always enjoyed the addition of cover songs into his band’s live performance repertoire, he explains:
“Most musicians are fans first and covers are a way for bands to show this. They can add an improvisational tone to an otherwise rehearsed feeling set, and give a sense that songs are owned not only by the people who write them but by the fans that know them and the other musicians that take influence from them.
About three years ago we started playing cover songs on stage, and a couple of unforeseen things started happening. First off, people would ask me – not knowing it was a cover – when the new songs they heard were coming out on an upcoming Black Marble LP. Sadly, I’d have to tell them that a) I didn’t write the song, and b) me playing this new material was not evidence of the impending new release they were hoping for. The other thing that would sometimes happen is people would come up to me who already knew the songs I was playing. These people were stoked to hear an old favorite worked into our set, but again they would often wonder if they could ever hear them outside of the live setting.
After a while it became obvious that we eventually wanted to record the covers we’d been playing live for the fans that wanted to hear them. Also, we’ve played a lot of shows in the past three years. We crossed the full U.S. several times and met a lot of great people and this covers EP is a cool way for us to remember that time as well.”
