Little Scream Does Mary Margaret O’Hara’s “Anew Day” For SiriusXM Polaris Cover Session
Little Scream covers Mary Margaret O’Hara.
The Polaris Music Prize, presented by CBC Music and produced by Blue Ant Media, has revealed its third SiriusXM Polaris Cover Session for 2017 featuring Little Scream reinterpreting “Anew Day” from Mary Margaret O’Hara’s 1988 album Miss America.
An in-studio performance video of the song is now available via the Polaris Music Prize’s YouTube channel. Additionally, an audio stream of it can be found on the official Polaris Soundcloud page.
“I’m a really, really big Mary Margaret O’Hara fan,” said Little Scream, also known as Laurel Spenglemeyer, in the song’s video. “The song that we decided to do was ‘Anew Day.’ It’s a little bit of an oddball pop tune and it feels a little more restless and exploratory. It felt less sacrilegious to see what we could do with it.”
Little Scream recorded her version of “Anew Day” at Fixed Hinge studio in Stittsville, Ontario. She sings and plays guitar on the track, while Mike Dubue added bass and synth, Jim Bryson played acoustic guitar and Pascal Delaquis played drums. Bryson mixed and engineered the song in addition to co-producing with Little Scream. It was mastered by Noah Mintz.
The Little Scream adaptation is the third of three cover sessions planned for 2017 that featured past Polaris nominees interpreting songs from “hall of fame” albums that have received Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize designation. O’Hara’s Miss America album received Heritage Prize honours last year in the 1986-95 jury vote category. Little Scream made the Polaris Music Prize Long List in 2011 for her album The Golden Record.
Other cover sessions in this year’s series include Hannah Georgas taking on Arcade Fire’s “Crown Of Love” and Les soeurs Boulay doing Kate & Anna McGarrigle’s “Complainte pour Ste-Catherine.” These three cover sessions are being compiled onto a collectible 10” vinyl record that will be given free to purchasers of 2017 Polaris nominated albums at participating record retail stores starting in August.
Other songs in the cover sessions series, which are also supported by SOCAN and Precision Record Pressing, include Zaki Ibrahim performing Leonard Cohen’s “Show Me The Place,” Whitehorse performing The New Pornographers’ “Bones Of An Idol,” Sarah Harmer performing Caribou’s “Odessa,” Great Lake Swimmers performing Sarah Harmer’s “I’m A Mountain,” Arkells performing Owen Pallett’s “I Am Not Afraid” and Joel Plaskett performing Feist’s “Bittersweet Melodies.”
