Desperate Journalist’s new lockdown cover of ‘The Fear’ by Pulp is out now. The band are currently working on new material, the follow-up to 2019’s ‘In Search Of The Miraculous’.
Much-admired darkpop dreamers DESPERATE JOURNALIST are popping their heads out of the giant pandemic duvet with the special release of their cover of Pulp’s ‘The Fear’ on October 2nd.
Back in the panic-stricken spring of 2020, when the growing global pandemic ensured that the playing of gigs suddenly became as practical as the flying of pigs, fierce panda asked its newly domesticated acts to choose a favourite tune by a.n.other band with which to rockdown in lockdown. These covers would form the Covid Version Sessions, informal home recordings designed to capture the unsettling mood of the moment, and now those recordings are all seeing the digital release light of day throughout the autumn.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and doom’n’boom experts Desperate Journalist couldn’t really capture the unsettling mood of the moment much more adroitly than by flirting with a song called ‘The Fear’ and anointing it with their patented brand of bruisingly low slung indie sass.
“We are all fans of Pulp in the band, but my personal favourite album of theirs is ‘This Is Hardcore’,” explains singer Jo. “It’s where Jarvis’s talent for the great observational lyric meets a cracking in his writerly facade, and the parallels between all the unusually personal angst in the songs and the death-of-the-Britpop-party cultural landscape of the UK at the time add up to a sublimely melancholic and relatable whole. It’s my go-to hangover record so (as bassist Simon says) I know it like the back of my hand. Anyway our friend Kevin kept suggesting we do a cover of ‘The Fear’ every now and again and it finally made sense in April what with the entire world slowly supernovaing into oblivion around us, all shut in our houses, so we had a go, because there was nothing else to do.”
Desperate Journalist have been more lockdowned than most this year: after the sensational response to their 2019 album ‘In Search Of The Miraculous’ – their third exemplary long-player – the foursome were already hiding away working on new material when the proverbial pandemic shutters came slamming down in March. Desperate Journalist’s fearless take on ‘The Fear’ is the second of the fierce panda Covid Version releases in the wake of woozy dreamboats MOON PANDA, who took The Strokes’ ‘Call It Fate, Call It Karma’ outside for a big cosmic cuddle on September 11th. More CV tunes from GHOST SUNS, JEKYLL, CHINA BEARS and NATIONAL SERVICE coming soon…
Until the end
Ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh
Released October 2nd, 2020
Written By: Pulp (Candida Doyle / Jarvis Branson Cocker / Mark Andrew Webber / Nick Banks / Stephen Patrick Mackey)
Performed By: Desperate Journalist [Jo Bevan (vocals), Rob Hardy (guitar), Simon Drowner (bass) and Caroline Helbert (drums)]
The Fat Angel Sings 