Sylvan Esso and Collections of Colonies of Bees Team Up for Cover of Califone's "Funeral Singers"

Sylvan Esso have teamed up with tourmates Collections of Colonies of Bees to record a cover of experimental folk-rock band Califone’s “Funeral Singers,” the quasi-title track off of 2009’s All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. The gorgeous cover turns the solemn lo-fi song into an emotional electro-pop ballad. The two touring bands began covering the song while on tour and felt they needed to record the cover for posterity and chose Wilco’s Chicago studio The Loft for recording. “The distance between Sylvan Esso’s crisp electro-pop and Califone’s dark, shambling indie-folk is shorter and more direct than it might seem,” says writer Josh Modell in the bio for the single. “And the cover you’re about to hear...of Califone’s ‘Funeral Singers’ will quickly make clear that two disparate worlds have been deftly bridged, and that there is peace in the valley. This new version is faithful to the original in ways, gorgeously different in others.”

Sylvan Esso released their latest album What Now last year, Collections of Colonies of Bees released Hawaii in July. Watch Sylvan Esso’s 2014 KEXP in-studio performance and listen to “Funeral Singers” below.