JD Set Madonna Cover Sessions
Lo Fi Studios, Glasgow
19/05/2010-21/05/2010

Moshi Moshi signings The Cocknbullkid (aka singer Anita Blay), Norwegian electro outfit Casiokids and folktronic multi instrumentalist James Yuill are arranging a cover of ‘La Isla Bonita’ for a live show on June 17th. The studio is pretty crowded, with a TV crew, competition winners and sundry hangers on, so it can’t be an easy task to reinvent one of Madonna’s well-known hits.

Cocknbullkid is going to add vocals to the beats already laid down by the others. Casiokids have made a beach sound effect and are toying with a pineapple-shaped shaker for extra percussion. Drum pads and synths surround James Yuill. He twiddles knobs to produce what everyone agrees is a “Hot Chip noise.” Maybe it can replace the Spanish guitar solo from the original. Anita’s confidence grows alongside her familiarity with the lyrics and she throws a few ideas of her own into the mix. The TV crew go for a take and they play the fullest version yet, and then as the camera keeps rolling, they go again, this time finding the right balance between the original song and their own musical styles. There’s something surreal about hearing the same song over and over and it’s becoming hypnotic.

The JD Set rehearsals on the Thursday in Glasgow is a positively all-inclusive affair as Silver Columns, Casiokids, Malcolm Middleton and Cocknbullkid all squeeze into room 9 to start work on reconfiguring ‘Get Into The Groove’. The electronic patching from Silver Columns is this song’s driving force, whisking unrelentlessly on top of the cocktail of guitar, bass and percussion underneath, whilst the drumming’s upbeat nature, resplendent in speedy hi-hat work, helps to morph this song from cheese pop to credible indie swagger
 
It’s not without its mishaps however, as niggles and stutters in concentration make for multiple re-takes of the song. “In my defence, I only had 30 minutes sleep last night” says the bespectacled Adem Illhan of Silver Columns – but in his defence, no-one noticed a slip of the finger on his electronic keypad, emanating a perfectionist nature perhaps absent in the rest of his musical comrades.

Next up is the Madonna classic, ‘Like A Prayer’, but with half the room emptying to do interviews and catch much needed sustenence, it’s left to Malcolm Middleton, Illhan from Silver Columns and Cocknbullkid to cradle the unenviable task of nuturing the song into being. Reading from a list of chords, Middleton muddles some of the progressions but both himself, and Illhan on bass guitar, begin to settle into the song with gusto and a sense of string-plucking teamwork (“it was G Major – we were right!”). It’s a perfect foundation for Cocknbullkid to overlay her typically sugary and endearing vocals, but unfortunately it’s devoid of the seminal choir sections. There’s a couple of competition winners in the room too, but they seem more singing in the shower than Sister Act.

It’s a perfectly serene finish to a long day in which sweat, frustrations and pop glee were laid bare in the cosy cave of musical inspiration. Madge will be proud.
The Fly returns on Friday to see Malcolm Middleton and Silver Columns (aka Johnny ‘The Pictish Trail’ Lynch and Adem Ilhan) attempting to tackle ‘Vogue’. This rehearsal is truly from scratch, Adem works out the chords on Malcolm’s guitar, Johnny decides how high to make the vocals and they set to work on selecting a back beat. ‘Vogue’ has plenty of gimmicks already so it’s going to be a hard one to stamp their musical personalities on but they gamely give it a try. Now it’s up to the competition winners to throw some shapes…

Lucy Brouwer and Chris Cope