I've already called "Psychic Returns" my favorite song of 2012, and one of my favorite ever. So, where's left to go from there? How can there be more praise?
Well, meet the Paradise In Piano version of it; which finds Paradise's Nedelle Torrisi and her musical director Kenny Gilmore (of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti) recasting the song in simple piano/vox format. Gone is the Sade slow-jam vibes; the funk bass, the hymnal organs, the ascending harp figures, the trails of synths, the washed-out vocal effects.
Left, instead, is heartbreak ringing with such clarity; never moreso than how vocals once obscured by rippling digital sounds are able to be heard, word for word. And, oh, how more profound divorce poetry was laying there, in wait, all along. "Our love was a tree not quite big enough to climb/not big enough to hide behind," Torrisi carols, gloriously; singing out with all the power, sweetness, and sadness her voice can muster.
She's got one of my favorite voices anywhere, and both the forthcoming Paradise LP and its In Piano twin are both filling me with giddy anticipation.
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