Your EDM featured Jenn Vix final yr in our New Artist Highlight sequence, because the synthwave and rock veteran had begun to dabble in electro together with her single “Mr. Unusual.” Now with a budding solo profession after working with so many huge names of the 80s and 90s like The Treatment and The Psychedelic Furs, it was solely a matter of time earlier than she’d thumb by her rock legend Rolodex and popping out with a killer collab. Such is the case together with her cowl of Phil Collins’s legendary anthem to anger, “Within the Air Tonight.”
When listening to the unique Collins monitor, it’s clear to see that the drummer/songwriter/producer was mild years forward of his time, a lot in order that the manufacturing values of the 1981 on the spot traditional maintain up towards something producers are doing in trendy labs. There’s a heavy aspect of synthwave within the authentic, thought it’s typically thought to be rock, which makes it appear polished and likewise greater than slightly ominous.
With Vix being well-known in synth and rock circles of the 80s and 90s, it’s not shocking that she may attempt a canopy of “Within the Air Tonight,” however it’s a enjoyable shock to study who she selected to work with on this stripped-down, pseudo-darkwave model. It’s none aside from Vernon Reid, the Grammy-winning guitarist from the wildly profitable 90s band Dwelling Color. Reid lends his superb guitar abilities to this cowl as Vix reveals her chops on the drums, and the monitor thus takes on fairly a special type from the unique.
With a darkwave beat performed by Vix on v-drums, her model of “Within the Air Tonight” opens with Reid’s intense ornamentation on the unique guitar work, including a shocking dose of blues to the combo and a pitched-up key to match Vix’s vocals. Stated vocals have VIx’s telltale deep and maudlin tones which by some means remodel the monitor, together with the bluesy guitar, into one thing extra unhappy and desolate than eerie and indignant. It’s an fascinating alternative however is sensible within the context of each musicians’ work. In some methods it virtually appears as if it’s a response monitor to Collins’s authentic, with Vix taking part in the defensive object of Collins’s anger fairly than the vengeful protagonist.
This new narrative is mirrored within the video Vix and her JFIVENINE Media manufacturing firm launched concurrently the monitor. In it, among the many photographs of her on drums and of Redi’s virtuosic guitar taking part in, There’s a stark black background at all times surrounding Vix, typically over the water with the moon within the backgrounds and typically trying like she’s on the run in an LA neighborhood. She seems unhappy and fearful as she sings, once more as if she is responding in protection to some unseen particular person past the fourth wall. Collins’s video had the same black-and-dark setting, largely with closeup photographs of his indignant face or huge photographs in a small room taking aggressive postures or hanging the partitions. Vix hasn’t confirmed this call-and-response vibe was her intention within the track or video, it’s only a principle. Watch and determine for yourselves.
It doesn’t matter what the vibe was purported to be Jenn Vix’s cowl of “Within the Air Tonight” is a enjoyable re-work of a traditional that also will get lauded at the moment as one of many all-time best tracks of the 80s and 90s. With Vix herself and 90s legend Reid on this monitor, one can’t assist however be nostalgic for these early synth rock and publish punk days, and the magic abilities like Collins, Vix and Reid created then.
The “Within the Air Tonight” cowl is at the moment solely obtainable on Vix’s YouTube web page however it can seemingly migrate to Spotify quickly. Within the meantime, try a few of her different work right here.
