Sharon Van Etten is celebrating Epic's 10th anniversary with epic covers album
Sharon Van Etten is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her second album, Epic, in an appropriately epic way: For its belated celebration, Van Etten announced epic Ten, a double reissue featuring a pretty incredible list of artists and bands covering each track.
This reissue features contributions from Lucinda Williams, Fiona Apple, Shamir, IDLES, St. Panther, Big Red Machine (The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon), and Courtney Barnett teaming up with Vagabon. Van Etten shared Big Red Machine’s cover of opening track, “A Crime,” a version that works perfectly with Vernon’s voice.
Dessner and Vernon had actually previously covered another track off of Epic, “Love More,” the year the album came out, and Dessner went on to produce Van Etten’s seminal record, Tramp. Here’s what Dessner had to say about Big Red Machine’s “A Crime” cover:
Sharon is one of my favorite songwriters and I’ve been very lucky to get to collaborate with her many times over the years. Recording “A Crime” with Justin, more than 10 years after we covered “Love More” at Music Now with my brother Bryce—and thinking about all our shared memories—it felt like coming full circle. It’s an honor to be able to pay tribute to Sharon and her incredible songs. We felt like the door should be about to fall off the hinges of this version and I think it sounds like that.
See the full track list for epic Ten below.
1. “A Crime”—Big Red Machine
2. “Peace Signs”—IDLES
3. “Save Yourself”—Lucinda Williams
4. “DsharpG”—Shamir
5. “Don’t Do It”—Courtney Barnett (ft. Vagabon)
6. “One Day”—St. Panther
7. “Love More”—Fiona Apple