There’s no magical trick to creating the perfect cover version. There are good ones and bad ones. There are plenty of bad covers of good songs, and a few good covers of bad songs, and you can never really predict which way it’s likely to go until you hear the results. The spectrum that runs between fidelity to the original and creative reinvention is not a yardstick for quality, but there are a couple of things that seem to help. Firstly, there needs to be a genuine love for the source material (it seems obvious, but this isn’t always evident). Secondly, it often helps if the one doing the covering has an excellent songwriting track record of their own. It helps, perhaps, to have a feel for the mechanics of song, a natural grasp of the link between the music and words as they appear written and the finished product, that mysterious thing that exists in sound waves and in the ether as a piece of music.
With that in mind, the phenomenon of a covers album is more difficult than it seems to pin down. More difficult for the artist to get right, too. But Katy Pinke – an exceptional songwriter in her own right – has, with the help of Okkervil River guitarist Will Graefe, absolutely nailed it. For one thing, they have hit an impeccable balance between variety of material and consistency of tone. Whether covering SoundCloud rap or classic country, they create a distinctive, thoughtful sonic world where their own ideas can flourish alongside the best bits of the originals.
Patterns opens with Courtyard, originally a standout from Bobbie Gentry’s overlooked 1968 masterpiece, The Delta Sweete. It becomes even more softly suggestive in Pinke’s hands, the lyric’s extended metaphor seeming to grow richer in detail under the hushed control of her voice. On SZA’s Good Days, Graefe’s hollowed-out notes create a tantalising sense of distance, while Pinke’s voice is neat, clipped and contemporary in a way that makes it gorgeously present. It does a rare and valuable thing: sheds a new light on the appeal of the original. It’s a kind of deconstruction, airing the complexities of SZA’s melodies, coming up with unexpected links between cutting-edge R&B and the timeless jazz-folk of Joni Mitchell.
They pull a similar trick on Yung Lean’s Agony, teasing out delicate melodies from a place of harshness and difficulty. The guitar brings a sense of stillness, and the whole thing becomes meditative and fragile. Dear April retains much of Frank Ocean’s easy soulfulness but strips the song bare and turns it into an anthem of emotional openness. Pinke’s interpretations are raw and cathartic, but she never needs to shout: she has an enviable knack of letting the melody and her clear, pliable voice do the heavy lifting.
Another knack is her talent for recognising what makes a classic a classic, and teasing that ineffable essence out. Paul Simon’s Night Game (with an atmospheric harmonica solo by Jake Sherman) loses every ounce of excess fat, perfecting a kind of emotional minimalism that transports you to that cold and tragic night in the baseball stadium. It’s like looking at an old newspaper clipping or seeing an old photograph and finding something new and haunting in it. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) dispenses with the rich layers of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and zeroes in on the combination of yearning and closeness at the song’s heart. You begin to realise how much the song is about touch, about sheer physical connection, and it’s a sensory revelation, a case of a song practicing exactly what its lyrics preach.
Pinke manages to cut even nearer to the bone on Clementine, the first of two Elliott Smith songs on the album. Her voice is foregrounded and almost uncannily close, like she’s singing inside your head (which is kind of perfect for a Smith song). The other Smith track, which closes Patterns, is Everything Means Nothing To Me. It’s over in less than two minutes, but its clarity and its delightfully ascending melody leaves you cleansed, if a little emotionally drained. It’s the perfect foil for the song that precedes it, the tragic and beautiful Jeff Buckley classic Lover You Should Have Come Over. Graefe’s soft strumming nags at you for six minutes, and Pinke’s voice seems on the verge of tearful collapse but somehow remains intact for the duration of the song. You’d like to think that Buckley would have approved of this version, and maybe that’s the measure of a good cover. Or maybe it’s this: you could come to Patterns without knowing any of these songs, and it would still be an entrancing and rewarding listen.