As Ryan Leas wrote final 12 months, it simply wouldn’t be Christmas with no new Sondre Lerche cowl. Indeed, yearly at Christmastime, the Norwegian indie-pop staple places out a brand new cowl tune; final 12 months’s was a rendition of Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More.” In current years, Lerche has additionally despatched us renditions of Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar,” Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next,” and Lady Gaga and Grande’s “Rain On Me” (with a bonus cowl of Dylan’s “I Contain Multitudes”). This 12 months, Lerche has circled again with a super-timely cowl of Taylor Swift’s much-TikTok’d Midnights single “Anti-Hero.”
Here’s a particular be aware from Lerche, who launched Avatars Of Love in April:
Hey there,
I wished to take the chance to ship love and due to all who’ve embraced «Avatars Of Love» and saved it heat with me by way of this in any other case distressful 12 months. Creating this album was the extraordinary pleasure of a lifetime, and sharing it on document and on stage has been a thrill. I’m so pleased with the work, and my many very important collaborators. My stunning band for nearly 12 years now; Dave Heilman, Chris Holm and Alexander von Mehren. My numerous manufacturing companions on this gigantic endeavor; Kato Ådland, Matias Tellez, Vetle Junker, Jørgen Trœen, in addition to Alexander and Chris in ever-new implausible capacities. And my phenomenal and beneficiant visitor performers on the album; Mary Lattimore, CHAI, AURORA, Felicia Douglass, Rodrigo Alarcon, Ana Müller and Kjetil Møster. String arranger Sean O’Hagan, who I’ve labored with since «Faces Down», and Øyvind Torvund, who I labored with for the primary time right here.
As custom would have it, right this moment Matias and I gathered at his studio in Bergen and picked an enormous, nice hit from the 12 months that’s handed us by to document a model of. I feel we each felt much less up to the mark with what the large songs of the 12 months have been, as we’ve each been preoccupied with our personal music moreso than ever in 2022. I’m not at all times certain what makes me need to cowl one tune, and why I’m much less excited by one other. It doesn’t at all times make sense. We thought of «As It Was», which we each take pleasure in, together with the remainder of the world. But in case you squint that recording already sounds kinda paying homage to some stuff we’d have been doing a little years in the past. «Break My Soul» is fab, and an thrilling/terrifying concept. Without these wonderful Big Freeda samples, I may solely let myself + the world down. I awakened considering I used to be gonna do «About Damn Time» however by the point we have been rolling, we have been going elsewhere. Although this 12 months’s alternative has been a lot coated and talked about, Matias and I felt a sure pull in the direction of it and obeyed our instincts but once more. We wanna be attractive infants too!
Just slightly over a 12 months and a half in the past we recorded «Avatars Of Love», the title monitor from my album, proper right here on this studio. Among the albums I point out in that tune have been «folklore» and «evermore» by Taylor Swift, together with a myriad of songs and artists I deeply admire and admire. So please settle for this unusual full circle within the type of this 12 months’s vacation providing. And gratitude to Taylor Swift for holding it coming and for indulging (or suing) us.
I hope you’ll find enjoyment in «Anti-hero» and even in case you don’t, thanks for rooting for me.
Much love and vacation cheer,
SL
So, would we are saying he’s “slowly LERCHE-ING toward your favorite city”? Sorry, I needed to. Listen to Sondre protecting “Anti-Hero” under.