
Premiere: The Pinkerton Raid Shares New Cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River”
JAGGED VACANCE: Winter Songs by Other People, Vol. 1 Due Out on November 29th
Nov 05, 2024 Photography by Megan Hollenbeck
Every year as the weather starts to get colder, the steady tide of Christmas music begins to come in. This year, Durham, North Carolina indie folk outfit The Pinkerton Raid are jumping into the mix with an LP of covers, ranging from Christmas standards to modern wintry folk confessionals. The first half of the record, JAGGED VACANCE: Winter Songs by Other People Vol. 1, is due out on November 29th.
Singer and guitarist Jesse James DeConto says of the project, “I wanted to record winter songs that feel essentially human, that capture the loss and longing, regret and despair, the fallen leaves and cut trees, the death of the past that somehow carries hope and possibility for the future, the most basic joy of being together.”
In 2022 the band shared their latest album, The Highway Moves The World, and in the years since they’ve shared a handful of winter singles, all of which feature on the forthcoming record. They returned in 2023 with covers of Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” and “Christmas Time is Here” and the band got a head start on the season in September of this year with their cover of Bon Iver’s “Holocene.” Today they’re back with another track, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River,” premiering with Under the Radar.
Where the original version of “River” draws its power from spacious piano balladry and Mitchell’s heartrending vocal performance, The Pinkerton Raid transforms the track into a lush folk rock ramble. The band brings out a winding understated groove, burnished by simmering keys, wiry guitar lines, and swelling horns. Like the original, they also interpolate the melody for “Jingle Bells,” uncovering a wistful undercurrent beneath the childhood nostalgia surrounding Christmas standards. Similarly, DeConto’s vocals load on the poignant heartache. He sprawls above the instrumentation, reinterpreting the original’s holiday melancholy into a wounded howl.
DeConto says of the track, “Christmas held everything that was good about childhood. I think it’s possible to hold onto that truth and also recognize that we’re never going back. Joni’s ‘River’ is the Christmas song for grown-ups. I don’t like to pick favorites, but this song is up there, not just among Christmas songs but among all songs. It assures you there’s nothing wrong with being sad about all the hopes and promises that we build up and that just don’t turn out the way we planned. There’s a soulful groove built into this song and I wanted to accent that.”
Check out the song below. JAGGED VACANCE: Winter Songs by Other People Vol. 1, is due out everywhere on November 29th.
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