SOTD #160 // Echo Lake: ‘Alisa’

Covering a song by the wildly inventive and idiosyncratic Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti can be quite a dicey affair. If you play it too safe and deliver a tame, uninspired version, the listener will wonder why you even bothered while they go back to listening to the ace original. But try and get too creative, and you potentially will make an unlistenable mess that is ultimately so unorthodox that the genuine spirit and vision of the song will surely be lost. But hit it perfectly, as Echo Lake does with Pink’s ‘Alisa,’ and you manage to both exalt the track and artist that inspired you, while also managing to create an authentic, lovely new number in its own right.

Coming from Pinglewood’s excellent Ariel Pink special, Echo Lake deliver a dreamlike, ethereal rendition that soars effortlessly while still maintaining the tender, vulnerable essence of the original. Amidst a muted guitar riff and a slow building wave of keyboard effects, the tension of the track eventually releases with a hypnotic, tribal rhythm reminiscent of the delicate grace of jj. When the source material itself is as stellar as ‘Alisa,’ you don’t have to dig too deeply to find inspiration, and the enigmatic London outfit clearly drew from Pink’s distinct ingenuity while crafting their airy homage to one of the most unique songwriters in modern music. But they also added their own mesmerizing flourishes to the song, giving it a wispy elegance that not only celebrates the original but builds on it, creating a superb new track in the process that is every bit as enthralling as Pink’s version.

Echo Lake: ‘Alisa’