DARKHER present an incredibly beautiful rendering of that in many ways most tragic SOUNDGARDEN song ‚Like Suicide‚, which is carried by Jayn Maiven’s magical voice and haunting instrumentation. The mysterious British artist has furthermore illustrated this touching song with a brilliant video:
DARKHER comment: „When I was approached for my own rendition of ‚Like Suicide‘ by Soundgarden, I felt it was important to do a version which sensitively captured the spirit of the original song“, singer and multi-instrumentalist Jayn Maiven explains. „Yet I also decided to take the lyrics musically on a different journey.“Jadd Shickler adds: „The death of Chris Cornell hit fans and musicians like a bomb, myself included“, the label manager writes. „In an inexplicable way, it felt almost like I’d lost a personal friend.
I did not actually know him, but there was so much longing and melancholy in a lot of his music that one could almost feel that he’d spent his life fighting to hold himself together and eventually just couldn’t fight anymore. When the time came to assemble the artists to re-imagine ‚Superunknown‘, it felt important to make a statement about losing him, so I specifically asked Darkher to consider taking on ‚Like Suicide‘. I knew that her delicate, haunting nature would recast this song as something more tragic and amplify the visceral sense of loss that so many of us feel about Chris being gone.
And just as I expected, her rendition is a perfectly heartbroken goodbye.“The sinister yet beguiling images that DARKHER aka Jayn Maiven paints with her ethereal vocals, guitars, and added strings conjure iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. With her latest album, the sophomore full-length „The Buried Storm“, the guitarist, composer, lyricist, and producer has clearly succeeded to even improve the beloved alchemic musical formula that was firmly established on DARKHER’s debut album „Realms“ in 2016. DARKHER were conceived as the sole brainchild and solo-project of Northern English singer and guitarist Jayn Maiven in 2012.
The dark and melancholic yet also massively heavy sound on the self-titled debut EP „Darkher“ 2013) combined with the distinct vocals of the shy pre-Raphaelite beauty caused an audible buzz – particularly in the doom scene – and led to the following EP „The Kingdom Field“ (2014) via Prophecy Productions. Despite not having an album out, DARKHER were invited to prestigious festivals such as Roadburn in Tilburg, The Netherlands and Prophecy Fest in the Cave of Balve. In 2016, the debut full-length „Realms“ was released to much praise from critics and fans alike. Press compared DARKHER’s music with a wide range of highly individual acts such as CHELSEA WOLFE, ESBEN AND THE WITCH, SÓLSTAFIR, LOREENA MCKENNITT, and PORTISHEAD. „The Buried Storm“ gives shape to the darkness lurking at the edge of consciousness, hidden from plain sight but patiently biding its time to strike out at the heart.
Parallel „Superunknown Redux“, Magnetic Eye Records will release the by now customary companion album entitled „Best of Soundgarden Redux“ that contains further 15 cover versions of deep cuts and all-time classics from across SOUNDGARDEN’s extensive catalogue recorded by more exciting artists.