Tag: Talk Talk It’s My Life

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Allegories Shares Broodingly Eerie “Stay Out Of The Basement”

Since the release of 2022’s Endless, the Canadian experimental pop duo and JOVM mainstays  Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — have released a growing collection of standalone singles, including the first cover of their history, their take on Talk Talk’s 1984 smash-hit “It’s My Life” and “DREAMCRUSHER.“

The duo’s latest single “Stay Out Of The Basement” sees the duo mischievously blurring the lines between playful fantasy and broodingly eerie undertone, anchored around Bentley’s plaintive Thom Yorke-like delivery ethereally floating over a minimalist production featuring skittering beats and swirling. reverb-soaked, shoegazer-textured synths. The song evokes the simultaneous feeling of snuggling in a warm blanket — but then feeling something grab at your toes.

“‘Stay Out Of The Basement’ is the second in a series of songs that started on ukulele—but this one took a left turn. I wrote the original idea, dropped it into Pro Tools, and handed it off to Jordan. Usually, we keep parts of that first take—vocals, lyrics, melodies—but in this case, none of it made the cut.

The original version had solid ideas, but it didn’t fit the new direction. The vibe, the vocal phrasing—it just didn’t connect. So we started fresh. What you hear now is entirely built around Jordan’s instrumental, and the final vocal fits it naturally.

Each song in this series lands somewhere different. Some stay true to the original demo, others evolve into something completely new. ‘Stay Out Of The Basement’ is one of the rare ones that left the ukulele version behind entirely.”

The accompanying visual features the duo performing the song in studio, as reel-to-reel tape machines run. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Allegories Tackle Talk Talk’s Smash-Hit “It’s My Life”

Canadian experimental pop outfit Allegories — childhood friends Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell — can trace their project’s origins to their members’ penchant for indulging in unconventional musical pursuits. After founding anthemic, indie rock outfit The Rest, Bentley and Mitchell embraced any opportunity to indulge their more outeé inclinations and desires. 

Back in 2014, Bentley and Mitchell began writing and recording material with no clear destination in mind, dabbling in everything from neoclassical compositions to hip hop. Gathering further inspiration from DJ’ing house and hip-hop nights, the act began to create electronic music that often shifts between the mainstream and underground spectrum. 

Throughout the past decade or so, the duo have had very busy schedules: Bentley currently works behind the scenes in the music industry. Mitchell operates a restaurant. But Allegories almost always found a way to creep back into their lives — even if only as a private amusement between the pair. 

The duo spent the better part of a decade winnowing down 35 song ideas into their nine-song album. 2022’s Endless, their first full-length album in over 14 years. “There’s a moment during the marking of an album, where you don’t know if you’ll finish it,” Bentley and Mitchell say. “Endless was riddled with these cynical epiphanies. It’s unavoidable when you’ve spent over half a decade tinkering away. But as we closed in on the finish line, there was a sense that this could be the last work you ever complete. That spurs the process on, giving urgency. If you spend 14 years between albums, you want to make every note count.”

Since then, the Canadian duo have released a handful of standalone singles, including their first ever cover, Talk Talk’s 1984 smash-hit “It’s My Life,” which was also famously covered by No Doubt back in 2003. As the story goes, the duo’s Adam Bentley has long been skeptical of the song, associating it with the No Doubt cover that he was forced to listen to “almost every day for five years” while working at a hardware store. However, Bentley’s bandmate Jordan Mitchell managed to get the British band’s biggest transatlantic hit stuck in Bentley’s head, which sometimes occurs for months at a time. And with his prodding, Mitchell got Bentley began to see it in a new light.

“The urgency in Mark Hollis’ vocals struck me. And by covering the song, I felt like I was taking back to a place of admiration and passion, and away from Gwen Stefani. Keep Talk Talk away from Gwen at all costs,” Bentley insists.

While the Allegories’ take on the song is for the most part fairly faithful to the original’s climbing bass melody and steady beat, paired with Bentley’s urgent, impassioned delivery. But unlike the original, the Canadian duo add some swirling shoegazer-like synth textures, which gives the Allegories cover a subtly otherworldly quality.