Phoebe Rings take on Beach House's "Astronaut"
Phoebe Rings
Share cover of Beach House's "Astronaut"
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Debut album Aseurai out now on Carpark
2025 has been an eventful year for New Zealand’s Phoebe Rings, supporting Japanese Breakfast and The Beths on tour and releasing their debut album Aseurai, via Carpark Records. An album that Pitchfork praised as “alternately chill, cosmic, and cosmopolitan,” and Paste called “sharply in the pocket that makes them terrific.”
Back at home in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, following their album release show, and before heading out on their debut USA tour, the band returned to the studio to record a pair of cover songs, this first one being a cover of Beach House's "Astronaut", from their 2008 sophomore album, Devotion.
Listen to Phoebe Rings cover of Beach House's "Astronaut" here
There's similarities in both artists' approach to the dream/chamber pop genre, and "Astronaut" aligned nicely with the space theming ('Phoebe Rings' are named after the 'Phoebe ring' of the planet Saturn). The band also found commonality in the harmony and melodic approach to their own music in the original, specifically pointing to the 'slash chords' and flowing melody. "For a few of us, those first two Beach House albums stand out as being very formative", says drummer Alex Freer.
Replacing drum machine and organ bass with bass guitar and drums, the band also add pedal steel and twinkling omnichord to align the arrangement closer to the Phoebe Rings sound world. Vocalist and keyboard player Crystal Choi's voice, although in a vastly different range to Beach House's Victoria Legrand's, soars with the same dream like quality in the song's climax, ably joined by Kavanagh-Vincent on backing vocals. Juno and guitar play the cross-rhythm counter-melody from the original, with buoyant bass fills from Locke.
