Isadora Eden Revisits the ’90s

Isadora Eden began her songwriting journey within the folk genre but released an EP of dream-pop tunes last year. The Denver-based songwriter continues to evolve her sound in that vein with her latest project, which she has been working on for the past year. She covers songs by Annie Lennox, Bright Eyes, Beck, Pavement, Bush and Counting Crows, and will release one single a month, beginning with Bush’s somber “Glycerine” on Friday, February 25.

“It feels like each song is kind of a slightly different genre,” Eden says. “A combo of a dream-pop, fuzz, folky shoegaze thing, with the style of the other person who was on the cover.”

Eden collaborated with a variety of artists for the songs: Duke Justice plays on “Glycerine”; Nina de Freitas on Lennox’s “Pavement Cracks”; Fire Motel on Bright Eyes’ “Something Vague”; Dean Rogers on Beck’s “Lost Cause”; Bellhoss on Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair”; and Corsicana on Counting Crows’ “I Wish I Was a Girl.”

“They will all be released at the end on one put-together EP,” she says. “I felt they were all pretty different. They were all singles on their own. I wanted to let each one have its month to shine.”

The EP will be heavy with songs from the 1990s, though Eden says that wasn’t necessarily intentional. She loves ’90s music and was born in that decade, so perhaps a touch of nostalgia exists in her choices.

“I’ve had a long playlist of songs I was considering covering for shows or for a release for a long time,” she explains. “I knew I wanted to do collaborative covers, and used this as an opportunity to work with other musicians in a less pressured setting than trying to write something together.”

Eden adds that she set out to collaborate on the songs specifically with Denver artists, but she made her choices carefully. “I think it makes me a better musician to see other people’s workflows and work with someone who has a totally different style than I do,” she says. “I think doing covers is fun. There are so many songs that I love that would be fun to do a different take on.”

She is a big fan of Lennox, and finds de Freita’s voice a perfect match for a cover of “Pavement Cracks,” off Lennox’s 2003 album, Bare. She adds that she and collaborator Bellhoss pondered covering Pavement’s “Here,” but decided that they should do something other than the group’s singular ballad, and ultimately opted for “Cut Your Hair.”

“We had a lot of fun with that one,” Eden reminisces. “It felt like we could take little risks and do weird little things.”

She loves the original versions of the songs and their longevity. “Glycerine,” the inaugural cover, is always on the radio, even 25 years after its original release, she notes. The original’s sound is unlike the music she makes, so it was fun to come up with her own take.

“I think the one I listened to the original version of the least was ‘Glycerine,'” she admits. “But I think that was kind of fun to do. Since I don’t listen to the original as much…it was easier to make it totally our own, which felt really fun.”

Eden has taken inspiration from a variety of bands during her time as a musician, including defunct Scottish indie-folk outfit Frightened Rabbit and Rhode Island band Daughters. She also takes cues from solo acts Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy and Fenne Lily, as well as one of the original shoegaze bands, Slowdive. A friend described her last EP, I’ll Be Here All Night, as “Fenne Lily meets Slowdive,” she recounts.

The new covers are a stylistic continuation of that EP, but they still possess the some of the loud/soft/loud dynamics of ’90s alternative bands. Eden says that while she was recording, she was listening to a lot of Alice in Chains, one of her favorite outfits.

“I thought about doing some Alice in Chains songs, but making them more folky,” she reflects. “Some of them, structurally, are just very metal.”

Look for the songs on Isadora Eden’s Spotify page or other streaming platforms beginning Friday, February 25.