Bloomington artists Hoops released an EP called English Breakfast, comprised of two covers of British bands. They cover Coldplay’s Don’t Panic, and The Clientele’s Reflections After Jane, both originally released in 2000. While I normally won’t write about covers, I’ve listened to both of these songs quite a bit. I have no doubt you’ll enjoy them if you haven’t heard them yet.
Hoops really honored Merge Records‘ The Clientele with their rendition of Reflections After Jane. Kevin Krauter’s vocal plate is more pronounced and darker than the spring reverb that The Clientele used. The drums are darker and pushed further back, and the classical guitar layers are panned to the edges, compared to the centered guitar on the original (The Clientele placed the guitar slightly behind the drums). And the electric guitar at 3:02 has a really nice delay that is missing in the original. It’s such a great sound!
Their Coldplay cover takes more liberty. They took the saturation that is on Chris Martin’s vocals (and on the overall mix) and heavily saturated the drums and Krauter’s vocals. The synths at 1:20 are so nice, sounding as though they placed it on the left and threw a very short delay on the right. The slapback, dark reverb, and low pass filter on the drum loop are perfect.
Hoops, local to Bloomington and Indianapolis, has been working with Ben Lumsdaine (also a Bloomington native) on their follow up to their 2017 Routines LP. In 2018 they announced they were taking a hiatus; coinciding with this, Hoops bassist Kevin Krauter released two solo LPs, Toss Up and Full Hand, both produced with Lumsdaine, The rest of the band released solo projects and have been playing locally in side projects.
Near the end of 2019, Hoops released their single, They Say, on their label Fat Possum Records. We look forward to hearing more!
Hoops links
