Following the announcement last week that the UK songstress Gemma Ray has collaborated with Sparks on her interpretations of two of their original songs for a limited edition single release, the ‘Gemma Ray sings Sparks with Sparks‘ versions of ‘How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall’ and ‘Eaten By The Monster of Love’ are now available to stream exclusively on The Quietus here
The collaboration came about when Gemma Sparks, who is a long time fan of Sparks (the legendary LA duo consisting of Russell and Ron Mael), was contemplating injecting elements of her next album with some Sparks-esque pomp and grandiosity. Sparks dared Gemma to attempt one of their songs, and they eventually ended up choosing ‘How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall‘ (from their album ‘Lil’ Beethoven’) and the innuendo-filled ‘Eaten By The Monster Of Love‘ (from ‘Angst In My Pants’). Gemma approached the songs side-on with her torch-singing noir style. Ron & Russell then took these new Ray-styled numbers, and re-built them Sparks-style. The resulting 2 songs will be released as a double a-side single on Feb 20th (Bronzerat Records) and will also feature as bonus tracks on Gemma Ray’s forthcoming new album ‘Island Fire‘ which is set for release on April 16th.
In the words of Gemma Ray: “I have long been a huge admirer of Sparks’ non-conformity which allows them to take their uncompromising creativity to wherever it wants to go. But I really could not imagine what my thing combined with their thing would sound like, and that was a big part of the attraction. ”
And in the words of Sparks: “It takes a certain type of bravery to attack our songs. Gemma has both bravery and immense talent. We are moved by the results.”
Gemma Ray will play HMV’s Next Big Thing at The Garage (London) on Sunday 5th February. She’ll also be performing at this year’s SXSW in Austin as well as heading out on European tour dates with Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, CW Stoneking, and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings over the next few months.
