Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

3. Marker StarlingHigh January

I really want to cover this song, or sample the chorus. To me, it sounds a little bit Funkadelic. It sounds like something Dr. Dre would maybe sample and screw. It’s that timelessness, but very forward, like it could only have been made today. He’s one of my favourite songwriters right now. He’s got a bit of a lounge, almost monotone delivery. I find him very cinematic. His arranging of vocals, I feel like we don’t hear much of that today. We hear a lot of vocal arrangements that are synthetic. That’s him making his stacks. He has a lot of records, and they are all good. There’s not a stinker.

How was it that your collaboration ‘RIP Roy G Biv’ came together for the new album?

Literally over email. During Covid, my husband and I started going for walks with Chris [Cummings, aka Marker Starling]. We hung out and exchanged movies. And then we were like, you know, ‘let’s make a song over email just for fun’. It turned out great, so I put it on the record. We’re going to do more together. We’ve been teasing maybe starting a lounge duo with him on keys and me singing, us just doing standards. We’ll see if that comes to be, but it was making a song for fun.

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