Inhaler have officially released their haunting cover of Kavinsky‘s ‘Nightcall’ – check it out below.
- READ MORE: Inhaler tell us about single ‘Your House’ and new album ‘Open Wide’: “There’s a strong sense of arrival for us”
Back in June, the Irish band put a dreamy spin on the iconic track for Triple J’s Like A Version series, trading its original electro-pop sensitivities for an atmospheric indie-rock flair.
Speaking about their choice to reimagine it, frontman Elijah Hewson said that because it was on the soundtrack for 2011’s Drive, it felt “different to covering just a normal pop song. So that made us kind of lean into it a bit”.
Bassist Robert Keating explained that they’d “pulled things out” and given the song more space, saying: “I feel like it kind of revealed itself to be a bit more emotional and have a bit more weight to it.”
Now, their cover will also feature as a B-side to the limited edition ‘Hole In The Ground’ 7” available from December 12 here via Polydor Records.
Co-written and co-produced by French electronic musician Kavinsky and Daft Punk‘s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the original track is overwhelmingly popular, in part owing to its place in the opening sequence of the Ryan Gosling-led film Drive.
Last summer, Kavinsky teamed up with Phoenix to perform ‘Nightcall’ at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics with Belgian singer Angèle. He later released an official studio version of the collaboration, and, following its outing at the Olympics, ‘Nightcall’ broke the record for the most Shazamed song in a single day ever.
Having been sampled by everyone from Lupe Fiasco, Childish Gambino, Vinny Cha$e & Kid Art and Will Young and covered by the likes of Inhaler and London Grammar, Kavinsky told NME in 2022 that the song’s “sudden success” created a sense of pressure.
“I was scared to imagine what my music was going to be after this success,” he told us. “I took two steps back and started to imagine what I was going to record after that, at my own pace. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.”
As for Inhaler, the band recently wrapped the end of their ‘Open Wide’ tour, which came in support of their third album of the same name. The album arrived in February via Polydor Records and featured tracks including like ‘Your House’, ‘Billy (Yeah Yeah Yeah)’ and the title track.
In a four-star review of ‘Open Wide’, Ali Shutler wrote for NME: “Throughout ‘Open Wide’, Inhaler display a powerful confidence that’s impossible to resist. Comforting, cathartic and heaps of fun, it’s the sort of record that sounds brilliant on headphones but will really come to life, say, as the sun sets on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage.”
