One soft-spoken singer-songwriter soul looks to another and one of the most exciting covers of the year has been set: Sufjan Stevens has announced he’s covering the Nick Drake classic ‘Pink Moon’.
Stevens’ label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, took to social media to announce the cover, which will come in the form of a special vinyl release. A cover of the same song by British artist Hannah Peel will also be included.
The cover is being done as part of artist Marcel Dzama’s upcoming book Pink Moon: in the collection, Dzama presents new works inspired by his travels through Mexico and Morocco, detailing his strange immersion in culture’s aside from his own.
Taking visual cues from the evocative textures and colours around him, Dzama captures the spirit of place, while communicating something essentially human in the experience of those places.
Coming at a time of isolation, of stasis for so many, the book engages the imagination in a broad, borderless project, allowing the viewer access to the thrill of discovery and the excitement of the new; in other words, Dzama and Stevens sound like a wonderful artistic pairing.
It’s currently unclear if the Nick Drake cover will be available in other formats other than the 7″. Both the 7″ and artist book are scheduled for release via Rough Trade Books on December 15th, and can be pre-ordered here.
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‘Pink Moon’ was the title track from Drake’s third and final album in 1972. His greatness, like far too many artists, wasn’t recognised in his lifetime: it was only after his death from an overdose of amitriptyline in 1974, aged just 26, that he gained the critical acclaim his gorgeous and haunting songs so richly deserved.
Stevens, meanwhile, is very fond of a stunning cover or two. He’s put his idiosyncratic spin on Joni Mitchell, Arthur Russell, and even Drake.
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Check out ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake:
