Wolf Alice share Roches cover with Sunflower Bean duo ahead of B-sides release
The London band has recruited Julia Cumming and Bria Salmena for a three-voice cover of The Roches' 'Hammond Song', the second single from a B-sides package arriving on 21 August.
Wolf Alice have released a cover of The Roches' 'Hammond Song', recorded with Sunflower Bean's Julia Cumming and Bria Salmena. The track is the second song drawn from a three-track B-sides package that the band will issue digitally over the coming weeks, with the full collection landing on 21 August, the one-year anniversary of their latest album, 'The Clearing'.
Frontwoman Ellie Rowsell, Cumming and Salmena cut the song in Los Angeles during the 'The Clearing' sessions. Rowsell said the trio's vocal interplay in the original had been a reference point for the band since 'Blue Weekend' and continued to shape the newer record. "Recording in LA, where both Bria and Julia were living, it just seemed like a really fun thing to do to learn those harmonies and sing them with two of our favourite singers," she said.
The original 'Hammond Song' was written by Maggie Roche and drew on the three sisters' decision to abandon a budding New York career for six months in Hammond, Louisiana, in support of one sibling's romantic pursuit – a trip all three later regretted. Wolf Alice's version preserves that three-voice structure, swapping siblings for bandmates and collaborators.
The release follows a burst of live activity that has underlined the band's commercial momentum. Earlier this week, Wolf Alice played their largest New York show to date at Pier 17, where they debuted the cover on stage with Cumming and Salmena. Before that, they headlined London's Finsbury Park, their biggest concert so far, with support from The Last Dinner Party, Lykke Li, Rachel Chinouriri, Keo and Florence Road.
That Finsbury Park set included a cover of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and drew a five-star review from NME, which called the group "one of the very best around" and noted that Rowsell's name was spelled out in bulbs above the stage during the closing song, 'Leaning Against The Wall'.
The first single from the B-sides package, 'Gospel Oak', has already been released. The full three-song collection will be available digitally from 21 August, with a physical 7" edition available for pre-order.
For a band that has spent the past year touring behind 'The Clearing', the B-sides series functions as a bridge between album cycles, keeping listeners engaged without the lead time of a full new record. The choice of a Roches deep cut, reworked with two peers rather than a high-profile producer, signals a band using the gap between records to experiment rather than retreat.
