BELLA1336V
release date: 27th November 2022
Nell Smith is just 14 and from Leeds, though she started watching Oklahoma’s psychedelic pranksters The Flaming Lips several years ago while living south of Calgary, Canada. The band’s frontman Wayne Coyne noticed the parrot outfit, once sang David Bowie’s Space Oddity to her from within the inflatable hamster ball he traditionally occupies on stage, and subsequently befriended her family.
Not only has he encouraged her to learn the guitar over the past couple of years, but now he’s selflessly stepped aside to let her sing lead vocals on a nine-song album. If that all sounds logical enough so far, it won’t surprise you to learn that of course the songs are all Nick Cave covers – an artist 50 years her senior who Smith had never heard before.
Cave’s glowering menace acquires a new, lighter prettiness when his apocalyptic words are delivered in her high, youthful voice, drenched in echo and backed by the Lips’ familiar woozy electronic rock. The Australian doom-monger has already heard the lead single, a glistening version of Girl in Amber from his Skeleton Tree album that is only slightly less spooky than the original, and offered his own review: “Nell shows a remarkable understanding of the song, a sense of dispassion that is both beautiful and chilling. I just love it,” he wrote on his website.
- 140g Blue Vinyl
- 3mm Spined Outer Sleeve
- Black Paper Inner Sleeve
- Retail Sticker