Recommended if you like: Chromatics

The husband/wife Kennniff duo, otherwise known as Mint Julep, have release a cover of Talk Talk’s It’s My Life to pay homage to the late Mark Hollis, who passed away earlier this week due to illness. The cover is a beautifully arranged synth down tempo version that stays true to the sound of the original song, while offering enough differences to endear it to listeners.

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Keith Kenniff had this to say about the song

There are so many great things about this song. It evokes so many emotions throughout the duration of the song and communicates them so effectively, yet in a pop music context that is pretty universally appealing. When you look under the hood of the song it’s entirely genius how all of these elements work together to create something so unique. We wanted this to be an interpretation rather than a re-creation of what Mark did. We kept the structure pretty close to the original as I think that’s part of what makes the song really successful. In regard to timbre, I wanted to keep this very synth-based and try to achieve what he did with having different synth sections define the characteristic of the song, but put some different melodies and textures in there. As it turns out Mark’s range and Hollie’s are remarkably similar, so we kept in the same key.

Often, we see bands do covers shortly after the passing of an icon and it seems somewhat insulting. The songs sound like a cheap opportunity to cash in rather then a respectful heart felt tribute. This cover is guilty of no such thing. It’s a wonderful rendition that will remain a part of my music library going forward!