Nikolai Fraiture & Au Revoir Simone Redo Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’
You may have caught the Strokes‘ Nikolai Fraiture onstage at Governors Ball this past weekend (the band’s anticipated set was one of the 30 Best Things We Saw), but the bassist has been keeping quite busy offstage, too. One of his most recent projects just hit the web: a bouncy remake of Mazzy Star’s iconic wooze-fest “Fade Into You” with Brooklyn band Au Revoir Simone.
The New Immortals: The Strokes
“I saw Au Revoir Simone perform the song on kexp and had some ideas for how it could be recorded,” Fraiture, who produced the song, tells Rolling Stone. “I love the band and met Erika Spring through some friends in New York. I sent them a rough version of the track. They agreed to come into the studio to do vocals and sent in their keyboard parts while on tour. They each did just a few vocal takes but sounded great.
The “Fade” cover — which has a delightful, bouyant post-punk vibe — is a one-off team-up featuring Fraiture on bass and guitars. The crew recorded the song at Downtown Studios in New York in February during one of the city’s epic blizzards. “It was a dream collaboration for us,” Spring said.