Saturday 13 October 2007

Saturday Sessions: Long you live, and high you fly...


What better way to spend a Saturday blog than with a Saturday Session from The Shins? The Saturday Sessions is a fantastic compilation from BBC Radio 2 that outshines its more famous counterpart, Live Lounge, by a mile. It's a similar idea - bands pop in to the studio and perform a session featuring a cover. The key is in the bands that are invited to take part. Live Lounge had rubbish Brit soul-singers and such, where The Saturday Sessions invite bands such as this week's choice, The Shins.

They cover Pink Floyd's 'Breathe' a song I had never previously heard by a band I tend to rank as the dullest of all bands, ever. I stick with that, by the way. But The Shins inject an uncharacteristically dark feel to their version, and James Mercer's distinctive voice shines here.

Also, a secondary Shins treat for you - a version of their song 'Gone For Good' recorded on the streets of Montmartre in Paris. The sound quality isn't fantastic, in fact it's far from it, but what it lacks in clarity it more than makes up for in loveliness.

mp3: 'Breathe (Breathe In The Air)' by The Shins
mp3: 'Gone For Good (Montmartre Acoustic Street Version)' by The Shins


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