Carla Bozulich writes some damn mean songs, but she can also twist a cover pretty far. As most of her recent solo work consists of reinterpretations, it’s apt to bypass her writing for this set. We don’t get apples to apples, but we get an ample sense of her stylistic range, and her evolution. Do, please, seek out her albums to catch her own compositions—they’re magnificent.

Ethyl Meatplow - Close to You

Heard in album context, it’s easy for this to slip by a few times before realizing what it is. Once I finally realized, I had a huge guffaw over the mangling of the Carpenters’ classic. It’s no joke, though, with its Some Great Reward style clanging percussion intro and Carla snarling like a trapped wildcat before it settles into the main groove. Happy Days, Sweetheart is a classic one-off release best known for the infamous “fuckin’ bitch cunt” chorus on “Queenie”. Less known is the fact that Barry Adamson co-produced with the band.

The Geraldine Fibbers - Yoo Doo Right

No mistaking this Can cover, even if one missed the spelling on the tracklisting. Greatly shortened, and missing a lot of the dynamic range, it’s still a jaw-dropping performance. Not very representative of its home album, Butch, it does at least have some of the country fiddle elements that are prominent on half the numbers, and some of the raving that appears frequently on others. A few even jam the two together for a very of-the-moment Southern Gothic feel.

Carla Bozulich - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

By now, Carla’s gone from shredding the original, to re-interpreting, to trying to get it stripped even closer to the essence. This take on Willie Nelson’s classic may be lushly sweetened a bit, but it doesn’t add many frills, and is quite reverential. It’s the crowd pleaser from Red Headed Stranger, a reworking of his entire album that he also guests on, both vocally and on guitar. Her earlier biliousness doesn’t appear, but some of the tracks are intensely sparse and brooding, lest you miss the dark element of her work.

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