The Sour Notes – "Cuttooth" (single premiere)

Austin-based band The Sour Notes are releasing tracks from their upcoming covers album, which is appropriately called, This Is Not Our Music. If you aren’t familiar with The Sour Notes, they are a really awesome indie-rock band that have been around for nearly a decade. Definitely check out their YouTube channel, as they have some really cool videos for some of their singles.

Today, we are pleased to premiere the second cover song from the album, which is Radiohead‘s “Cuttooth” (From their 2001 EP, Knives Out). Honestly, the entire track list of the LP is quite diverse and amazing, featuring tunes by The Beatles, Sleater-Kinney, Wire, Jawbreaker and even Neil Young. In the meantime, free downloads of the two available tracks can be found here.

We got in touch with Jared Boulanger, and he shared a bit about why they chose to record a covers album and the motivation behind “Cuttooth”.

The reason why The Sour Notes ever recorded a cover in the first place was because we got asked to play a few “Hoot Nights” over the years. We had such a good time deconstructing the material that we ended up recording those songs in the studio… our own way! We tried to make each of the covers unique to their originals and even covered the cover art, based on Galaxie 500’s ‘This Is Our Music’, which was also lifted from the title of an Ornette Coleman album.

“Cuttooth” is a B-side on Radiohead’s ‘Knives Out EP’ and in my opinion, one of their best songs. Did you know they have never played this song live in concert ever? When I found that out, I wondered if it was because they wrote and recorded “Cuttooth” in the studio more or less and never really fleshed it out as a band. This gave me the idea to create a version of the song that could be played easily with a 5-piece band like Radiohead. I’m really happy of the way it turned out and hope that when Radiohead decides to play it live, it sounds like our version.

The Sour Notes’ version of “Cuttooth” definitely keeps to the original vibe yet totally fleshes out the song for a bold live setting versus the original backing piano. It is also a terrific choice because the lyrics, despite being 17 years old, are relevant today. Then again, Radiohead and Thom Yorke have always been years ahead of everyone. The Sour Notes’ cover, as such, is immensely timely. Hear the song below.

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