When Alan Morse Davies slows down pre-existing music, he finds entirely new music buried in the original. His version of the standard “Gloomy Sunday” takes an already downbeat affair, and then turns it into something worthy of a silent movie’s score — the very intersection of melodrama and expressionism. Most of the elements here are recognizable yet transformed, the strings a miasma of dread, the backing vocals a suffocating threat, the lead vocal something Gothic and right out of Bauhaus (MP3). The original was reportedly the version by Paul Whiteman with Johnny Hauser, from 1936.
[audio:http://www.at-sea.com/today/10%20-%20Really%20Gloomy%20Sunday.mp3|titles=”Really Gloomy Sunday”|artists=Alan Morse Davies]
More on the track, part of Davies not-quite-daily free-MP3 journal, at alanmorsedavies.wordpress.com.