We rarely highlight covers and remixes but there’s something about Braunbeer that makes me smile. Previously he’s been featured in a general article with one or two other artists but this time I’ve put him on display on his own, like a bottle of Newcastle Brown in splendid isolation on the bar.
He is an exponent of EDM, experimenting with and creating genres, playing around with his own voice as well as the music but on this occasion he’s recruited one Dana Bloom, about whom I know nothing, who appears to provide the vocal although I don’t know if it’s natural or played through a vocoder or other device.
I reckon some people might consider it sacrilegious to cover The Cranberries, especially a song that has over 1.5 billion You Tube views and probably more Spotify hits than there are noughts in the number of stars in the known universe; not to mention channeling poor Dolores like a robot in a 1960s TV space puppet drama. Who remembers Robert the Robot in Fireball XL5 with his Cockney “On our way ‘ome”?
Only me – I thought as much.
But I also believe there will be plenty that applaud them for doing it and bringing a new perspective to the song.
And after all it was a complete departure from The Cranberries’ usual more sugary style to offer up a grungy rock track in the first place so why not give it a fresh lick of paint now as EDM?
The other observation I’d make is that the song was of course written almost as an apology by Dolores O’Riordan to the people of Warrington in England when an IRA bomb took two of its children, which itself was highly unusual at that time of ‘The Troubles’.
So, because the irregularity existed already, there is nothing to stop even more being added here.
In fact I would argue that his wild, random, chaotic opening is probably more in tune with the theme of the song than the original one and could be interpreted as the immediate aftermath of two bombs exploding in litter bins in a High Street on a Saturday lunchtime full of shoppers buying Mother’s Day gifts.
The mid-song aggressive synthesiser notes could be the sirens of emergency vehicles. The manic drum strokes that culminate in the rattle of trap beats that could be machine gun fire representative of the angst that followed. While the piece concludes with the overtones of a memorial service
And Dana’s high pitched voice, like Iselin Solheim on helium, reminds us that the victims were so young.
The philosophising apart – and let’s be honest, Braunbeer might not know what I’m talking about here – it is simply another great dance track from a guy who is becoming quite the young master of his art.
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