Although Del Bel is hard at work polishing up the follow-up to their brilliant self-titled full-length from 2015, they found the time to produce a cover of Mazzy Star. Their take on “Look On Down From the Bridge” maintains the spirit of the original, its complex soul-searching chill vibe, while going dreamily deep in a different direction.
Led by Tyler Belluz, the Toronto art-pop collective contrasts the minimal arrangement of the original in its rich layers, soft downtempo beat with frayed glitch and lazy shaker percussion, the intricate trumpets of Ira Zingraff and electric mandolin of Joe Ernewein, and woozily droning lowpass synth bringing to mind a tweaked take on Angelo Badalamenti scoring a Lynch-ian ’80s epic fantasy film, while the simmering emotion in Lisa Conway’s voice rivals in that of Hope Sandoval.
It’s breathtaking, and bodes quite well for their next album winning the Polaris Music Prize, like their last one should have. Judge for yourself below.
More about: Del Bel, Mazzy Star
