10.28.2015 — “Taste of Cindy” as covered by The Tamborines

The Tamborines

If you only listen to one cover song today, make it “Taste of Cindy” as covered by The Tamborines (2015, from the Psychocandy Revisited compilation tribute).

The Tamborines is a c-86/lo-fi noise/jangle-gaze trio from London. I don’t know much about this band. They’ve been around since at least 2007. They released an album in 2010 called Camera & Tremor, and a new album this year called Sea Of Murmur. I think they used to be the duo of Lulu Grave (vocals/drums) and Henrique Laurindo (guitar/vocals). At some point, they added bassist Chokis Costa.

The band was recently asked to contribute to a tribute to the iconic Jesus & Mary Chain album Psychodandy. The Brazilian blog and microlabel The Blog That Celebrates Itself has been curating compilation tributes for some time now, and the results are always good. For this particular one, he got relatively well-known shoegazers such as Astrobrite, 93 Million Miles From The Sun and Static Daydream. The tribute has covers of all 14 Psychocandy tracks, in order (with two versions of “The Hardest Walk”) plus a cover of the non-album track “Some Candy Walking”.

I’ve known about the tribute album for some time now. It enjoyed a bunch of advance buzz, and it was finally released on October 15. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but I like this one a lot.

“Taste of Cindy” as covered by The Tambourines

I love that it starts with the buzz and squall that you might expect. After a short while, though, it drops all of the wall of noise and goes acoustic. It’s jangly and pretty. It’s much less intense than the JAMC original, but also much more intense than the JAMC acoustic version that you might find on the Some Candy Talking EP or the Barbed Wire Kisses compilation, or on the 2011 Darklands “luxe and redux” reissue.

There’s still a bit of fuzz under the acoustic guitar, so it’s got a little bit of contrasting texture. I dig it. I also dig Lulu’s voice here. She’s not usually the “lead” vocalist in her band, and obviously this was originally sung by Jim Reid. It’s nice to hear this song done quite different to the original.

I also love that Lulu plays her drum kit standing up, like Mimi Parker out of Low. Also, appropriately, this is how JAMC’s original drummer Bobby Gillespie played his drums.

You can get a download of Psychocandy Revisited by naming your price here.

Also, be on the lookout for the next TBTCI tribute compilation. Sometime in December, they’ll be releasing The Language of Flowers : a Pale Saints Tribute. I’ve only heard part of one song. I haven’t seen a track list, but I know that among the contributors will be Eyes Behind the Veil, VHS Dream, and The Foreign Resort.