There is something healthy in the idea that a song has no real final destination, no real definitive form. Obviously, those much maligned tribute and cover bands rely on such an idea to ply their trade, but I’m not concerned with those. I’m talking about the concept of an artist not being so precious about a song that they can’t rework it and give it a different form, allowing it to have new adventures and a new lease of life. And this is precisely why, having written about “Sinuous Ways” at the start of the year, I am discussing it again, but here the neat thing is that it is a song that is the same but different.
The clever thing that Elea Calvet does here is to reimagine this number in such a way that it loses none of its own inherent seduction and mystique; if anything, she pushes even further into such dark, velvety sonics.
If the previous version ran on spacious piano and cello washes, the end result feeling like a sort of French chanson or dark chamber pop, the new take is bathed in strings of all manner—the brooding cello is still present, but it is joined by cascading acoustic guitar and shards of electric six-string, sweeping violins plus resonant electronica, additional harmonies and random, and often one-off, sonic motifs.
It’s the same song but different—not better, not worse—just the music heading down a different timeline, an alternative musical reality, heading for a different conclusion, creating new potential, and serving a new purpose.
As I say, it takes a brave artist to reinvent and reimagine their own music, but evolution is the key. Nothing on this earth stays the same, not the landscape, the people, or anything else that matters. Everything moves on, so why shouldn’t our favorite songs?
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