With her honey-tinged tones, Anna-Lynne Williams is one of our favorite female vocalists. Over the years, she has released a bevy of material, collaborating with The Chemical Brothers (Hold Tight London) Au Revoir Borealis (The World Is Too Much With Us) and John Grant amongst others, 3 studio albums and 3 EPs with the Ethereal Indie band Trespassers William, Ormonde (with Robert Gomez) and a solo Folk project called Lotte Kestner.
Thankfully, there is a never a shortage of beautiful material coming out from Anna-Lynne, but even better is that fact that, like us, she has quite an affinity for cover songs.
With Trespassers William, she is responsible for one of our favorite covers of all time; a simply gorgeous version of Ride’s Vapour Trail. This is dangerous territory, tampering with what is already one of the most amazing songs ever. There is definite potential to crash and burn, but Trespassers put a beautiful spin on a classic with Anna-Lynne’s haunting vocals really taking it to the next level. Also, with Trespassers William, she contributed a cover of Suzanne Vega’s Left of Center for the album Isn’t She Still…the Pretty In Pink Soundtrack Revisited along with renditions from The Autumns and The National. While the aforementioned Vapour Trail was available on Bella Union and Nettwerk repressings of their 2nd record, Different Stars, the original self-released pressing featured their unique take on the U2 track Love Is Blindness, from their Achtung Baby album. In early 2011, Trespassers William released Trespassers William B-Sides, an album of B-sides, covers, alternate versions and remixes that featured not only only Love Is Blindness but a charming rendition of Rainbow Connection and a lovely take on The Innocence Mission‘s Tomorrow On The Runway. Sadly this digital album did not contain their versions of David Bowie’s Survive or The Cure’s Let’s Go To Bed.
As Ormonde, she teamed up with musical partner Robert Gomez for a duet of the Bjork/Thom Yorke track I’ve Seen It All from the film, Dancer In The Dark. They also took on the Holiday classic, Blue Christmas for the compilation, I’ll Be Hometapes For Christmas
However, it is with her Lotte Kostner project that Anna-Lynne really reveled in her love of performing covers. In June 2011, she released ‘‘Stolen’ on Saint Loup Records, a love letter to some of her favorite songs, with covers of The National, New Order, The Cure, Trash Can Sinatras, Interpol and more. Yet one album wasn’t enough to contain all the goodies, so she released a bonus Extra Covers EP with takes on Billy Idol, Catherine Wheel, Beyonce, Neneh Cherry and more!
In the giving mood for the Holidays, Anna-Lynne released Extra Covers EP 2 just before Christmas with gorgeous covers of Elvis Costello’s I Want You and Yaz’s Mr Blue alongside versions of Kings Of Convenience, Ghosts I’ve Met, The National (again!) and Fleet Foxes.
Also recently released was Please Please Please: A Tribute To The Smiths (previously blogged Here), which featured Trespassers William taking on There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.
We would like to thank Anna-Lynne for all of the truly amazing music she has put out over the years, and sincerely hope that you will look into her original offerings as well as the truly unique cover versions highlighted in this article at the links below.
Trespassers William Official Site
Take a listen to a sample of her amazing covers below.
Trespassers William – Vapour Trail
