Video: Jesika von Rabbit & Kirpatrick Thomas, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’
Kevin Bronson on
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When Joshua Tree provocateur Jesika von Rabbit isn’t wearing bunny ears and making desert-dazed electronic music, she is foraying into other styles (including country). Today brings the release of a new collaboration with Spindrift’s Kirpatrick Thomas that honors the legendary songwriter Cole Porter.
Arriving the week of the 129th anniversary of Porter’s birth, “Don’t Fence Me In” is part of the Cole Porter Project, which brings together contemporary artists to interpret the songwriter’s work. It’s the ongoing effort of one of Porter’s cousins, actor-filmmaker Ward Roberts, who hails from the same hometown, Peru, Ind.
The version from von Rabbit and Thomas was produced by Ethan Allen (her longtime producer/bandmate in Gram Rabbit), who has worked with such artists as Mavis Staples, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ben Harper, The 88, Tricky, Luscious Jackson, Sheryl Crow and Patty Griffin. Oh, and Spindrift, notable for their distinctive “psychedelic spaghetti Western” sound. Between Thomas, von Rabbit and Allen, they have conspired to make the highest high-lonesome version of Porter’s 1934 classic ever.
Equally remarkable is the stylized and beautifully oversaturated video from director Shannon Black. Fading between images of Thomas on an L.A. rooftop, von Rabbit in the desert and the highways that link the two locales, it captures Porter’s romance with whatever lies “underneath the Western skies.”
The principals discuss taking on “Don’t Fence Me In” in this video doc.
Join them on their “ride to the ridge where the West commences.”
||| Watch: The video for “Don’t Fence Me In”
[…] from Mondo Cozmo, the Airborne Toxic Event, More, Gateway Drugs and Pure Protein. Plus, that cool Cole Porter cover from Jesika von Rabbit & Kirpatrick Thomas. Find the playlist below, and if you’re out of FM […]