Orson Wilds Share Cover of Phoebe Bridgers' 'Kyoto'

Ahead of last week's Grammys ceremony, Canadian duo Orson Wilds shared a performance of Phoebe Bridgers' "Kyoto," exclusively via Brooklyn Vegan. Today, the cover gets a wider release and is available across all streaming platforms.

"Phoebe Bridgers is the ultimate apocalypse music," vocalist Eric Reid told Brooklyn Vegan. "It feels deeply personal and introspective but there's also a level of nihilism and despair, which is frankly, everything I look for in an artist. Punisher was such a perfect soundtrack for the last year and it helped both Brianna and myself get through some weird s. 'Kyoto' feels like the outlier on the album and felt the least voyeuristic to cover in terms of subject matter. It's like a rock song, but super nuanced and not necessarily mixed the way you'd expect a rock song to be mixed, which is a huge part of what makes it so affecting. We approached it from a different angle and tried to keep it as live feeling as we could. We kept our takes to a minimum and sped it up a bit, I think it took like 4 hours to record."

Orson Wilds' debut studio singles, "Mothers Daughters" and "Stand Up," were both recorded and produced by Will Yip (Panic! At The Disco, Turnstile, Title Fight), and will be included on the band's forthcoming debut album expected to arrive later this year. Released in December, "Stand Up" is already closing in on one million streams globally. The track was commended by Uproxx, Northern Transmissions, and The Alternative upon its release, with Uproxx declaring it "one of the most anthemic indie rock jams since Arcade Fire dropped 'Wake Up.'" Both tracks are available now on all streaming platforms. Watch the official video for "Stand Up" here and "Mothers Daughters" here.

Orson Wilds, fronted by Eric Reid and Brianna Bordihn, have only played a handful of shows in the Southern Ontario area, focusing mainly on the honing of their craft and sound. This hard work paid off when Yip, an enthusiastic producer with bustling industry savvy, was so taken by the compositional strength of Orson Wilds' songs that he took the band under his wing, helped them produce two new singles, and signed them to his imprint. Though Reid and Bordihn represent the core of Orson Wilds, an ever-evolving collective of friends and family round out the live iteration of the band with stomping uplifting electric guitars, horns and woodwind sections, and thrashing, urgent percussion.

Listen here:

Photo Credit: Calm Elliott-Armstrong