Nashville-based artist Anana Kaye delivers a haunting reimagining of Leonard Cohen’s “There Is A War.” By trading the original’s strings for grimy distortion and an industrial pulse, Kaye highlights the song’s timeless urgency within a newly creative soundscape. This gripping production blends jazz elements with screaming guitars, reflecting a world at a tipping point of divisiveness. The track serves as the second single from Kaye’s new album Are You There?.
While Cohen’s original track opens with frolicking acoustic strums, steady drums, and emerging lavish strings, Anana Kaye’s interpretation succeeds in another atmospheric realm entirely. Her vocals appear right away, lyrically depicting wars between “the rich and poor” and a myriad of other classifications, from gender to ideology. “Why don’t you come on back to the war?” the vocals beckon as grimy guitar distortion weaves in, already differentiating well from Cohen’s original with an unsettling, industrial tint.
The quivering “I guess you call it love, I call it service” vocal haunts also compel into further electric guitar textures, moving into a midpoint where the vocals fade in favor of soaring guitar lines and pulsating percussion. The original’s beautiful string work may be absent from this cover, though there’s no shortage of added atmosphere via the artfully blended guitar-laden excitement and inventive textural incorporations. Anana Kaye shows why “There Is A War” remains a timeless classic lyrically, while providing a modern stylishness to its production.
She elaborates more on the track’s creative process:
“What drew me in were the lyrics, the groove, and the urgency,” explains Kaye. “I began at the piano, then gradually we added layers of rhythm, building tension and opening up room for musical experimentation in the studio with Charlie Chamberlain at the helm. Chris Benelli overdubbed acoustic drums and percussion, and David Conrad’s upright bass felt like casting against type—but it worked, introducing a jazz element into the industrial pulse. The screaming guitars and sonic treatments by Irakli Gabriel and Charlie echo and punctuate the intensity of the lyrics, which feel more timely than ever.”
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
