Mazzy Star will be forever known for “Fade Into You,” their one big hit across four albums. It’s been covered hundreds of times (only two other Mazzy Star songs have more than one known cover). Many of those covers try to capture something of the original’s mystique and dreamlike quality and most of them remain very much within the pop rock paradigm.
thèriot. is the Bandcamp alias of composer, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Kyle Saulnier, known for his work in modern composition and leading the third stream-esque The Awakening Orchestra. For this new cover he’s recruited Francesca Blanchard, who we last saw covering “Wicked Game,” to sing, and his wife and brother-in-law as a string section.
This cover opens with Blanchard’s layered, wordless vocals with some hints of strings before she starts singing the lyric significantly slower than Hope Sandoval in the original. Her backing vocals and the string quartet sustain long notes behind her lead vocal, with an extremely chamber music vibe both in pace and the instrumentation. Saulnier, who wrote the arrangement, is at first not very audible on standup bass, until the chorus, which is initially just Blanchard and him without the strings or backing vocals. But the arrangement builds as Blanchard repeats the refrain, with each voice slowly shifting notes and the mix getting denser.
Though Blanchard sings the melody conventionally, albeit more slowly, the backing is very modern, post-minimalist chamber music, plus some looping, giving the cover both the beauty we expect from the original song but also a slight uncanny feel. It manages to both sound very much like the original and entirely distinct.
