Donegal based singer-songwriter Rosie Carney has released a full cover album of Radiohead’s The Bend. Rosie has taken the album and reworked it into a haunting and breathy album and reclaimed it as her own. Covering this album became Rosie’s lockdown project as she set out to put her spin on each song, making it completely different from the original.
The album reflects the hardships 2020 has brought, especially as the recording coincided with her travelling back to Ireland to be with her family for the lockdown. In a statement about the album Rosie said; “There are actually a lot of firsts for me on this album but I made sure not to put pressure on myself. I took my time and gave myself the freedom to do whatever felt right to me.
Along with the album, Rosie has also released the visual for High and Dry. This was the song Rosie was most worried about covering, as she feared she couldn’t do it justice. Speaking about the song, she said; “I don’t think I’d ever paid too much attention to the lyrics of this song before covering it, and in ways reading the lyrics was kind of like a reality check for me. At the start of lockdown I’d become so obsessed with what people were thinking of me. I felt vulnerable and in ways exposed, so I tried to hide that by muting and changing myself.”
“I felt like nothing I did was good or cool enough which was shit. Thankfully hindsight is an amazing thing, and after being able to hit somewhat of a reset button, I think I was able to appreciate the message this song holds, which, to me, is don’t waste your life pretending. I remember thinking, ‘damn, I can’t believe I nearly became like the person they’re singing about.”
This album comes after the release of her debut album Bare last year, which received high regards from critics as they described Rosie as finally finding her sound. The Irish Times even described her music as; “a resonant depiction of a person moving on, learning and coping. Instrumentation is sparse: guitar, piano and little else. It’s Carney’s voice that holds the attention.”
The Bend is available now on all platforms, you can listen to it below.