To celebrate the tenth anniversary of her sophomore album epic, indie rock icon Sharon Van Etten has announced a re-release of the album, entitled epic Ten.
Along with the album’s original seven tracks, Van Etten has enlisted a group of artists to attribute their own renditions of the album’s songs. The artists who have covers on the project include IDLES, Fiona Apple, Courtney Barnett, and others. Big Red Machine, who covered Van Etten’s “Love More” in the past, released their cover of epic’s opening track “A Crime” adjacent to today’s announcement.
“epic represents a crossroads for me as an artist,” Van Etten shared in a statement. Her sophomore effort, epic furthered Van Etten’s case as a soon-to-be fixture of the indie rock scene when she released it in 2010. Exploring ideas of everything we despise in others, but often fail to recognize in ourselves, epic is an emotional piece of art that Van Etten has only expanded upon with her more recent releases.
The statement from the New Jersey singer/songwriter continued with her gratitude for those artists who collaborated on the album’s re-release. “I am in awe of the artists who wanted to participate in celebrating my anniversary and reissue, from young inspiring musicians, to artists who took me under their wing, who I met on tour, and to artists I’ve looked up to since I was a teenager,” Van Etten shared.
Aaron Dessner, who is one half of Big Red Machine alongside Justin Vernon, also shared some thoughts on the project via Twitter today. “Over the years, we have often toured together and collaborated in many ways,” Dessner said of his artistic relationship with Van Etten. “So recording ‘A Crime’ with Justin felt like coming full circle and was a giant catharsis for us… I nearly broke the studio monitors blasting this song over and over.”
You can pre-order the album here and listen to Big Red Machine’s cover of “A Crime” below.
