Robert Del Naja is singing Girl In The Year Above’s praises.
The Irish/Cornish band fronted by Jennifer Ball did a cover of Massive Attack’s 1998 track ‘Teardrop’ for the new Peaky Blinders film that dropped last week.
So the story goes, Elizabeth Fraser recorded the O.G vocals for the song right after she got the news of her former partner Jeff Buckley’s disappearance and death in 1997.
As if the harpsichord driven melody wasn’t already haunting enough, Fraser took it to news levels with the raw emotion.
Lucky for Massive Attack, too, the release came after Cocteau Twins 1993 album Four-Calendar Café where Fraser woke up one morning and decided she’d start writing songs with some lyrics that were actually decipherable.
Since then, it’s been quite a hard task to live up to the legend of Fraser, but Girl In The Year Above has come close, earning nods from Cillian Murphy and Robert Del Naja.
View this post on Instagram
How the cover came to be is a bit of a Fleetwood Mac-esque meeting story, where one of the composers apparently laid eyes on Jennifer Bell singing and playing guitar during a night out.
That voice was all he needed. Antony Genn flicked her a message and asked her to be a part of the project.
Up until then, Bell had never been in a studio – in fact the band’s Instagram bio literally reads “If you want to hear our music you have to see us live for now!”, so if you’re reading this thinking “but I’ve never even heard of these guys?!” you’re definitely not alone.
Once they were all done, Genn showed Cillian Murphy the track, which he says almost brought him to tears.
The song is available on all streaming platforms, and you’ll definitely want to check it out considering it’s the only morsel of Girl In The Year Above the Worlds for now.
If we’ve ever said “watch this space” and meant it, it’s now.
