Lately the Waterboys' Mike Scott has been busy posting AI slop and recording a star-studded album about Dennis Hopper. But to me, the biggest Waterboys story in recent years has been the endurance of their spellbinding anthem "The Whole Of The Moon" as a modern standard. Though 1988's Fisherman's Blues is arguably the UK folk-rock/post-punk band's definitive album, noteworthy musicians keep taking stabs at the lead single from 1985's This Is The Sea. Fiona Apple covered it in 2019, then Bleachers in 2021. Long before that, artists including Jennifer Warnes, Tom Baxter, Boys Of A New Age, and even Mandy Moore recorded the song. More recently, bluegrass group the Travelin' McCourys and Jack Garratt released their own versions. Today, we get a pleasing addition to the canon.
Last year Keith McIvor, the Scottish DJ, producer, and musician who co-led the duo Optimo under the alias JD Twitch, passed away shortly after revealing a brain cancer diagnosis. In their grief, many of McIvor's friends have come together as a one-time supergroup called the Watergirls to cover "The Whole Of The Moon" in his honor. Teamy, also from Glasgow, headed up the project with Mhairi McClymont on lead vocals. Shellac's Bob Weston played bass, CC:Disco and Fantastic Twins handled backing vocals, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy did his signature "Bowie bit" on the bridge, and the trio of Pearl M Wong, Mary Kiani, and Pablo Morales lent production and engineering help.
The result is not the first electronic version of "The Whole Of The Moon," but it may be the best. This recording holds on to the original song's overwhelming heartland-rock emotional core within the framework of JD Twitch's beloved electronic dance music. It's coming out on 12" vinyl (with two remixes by the Hardway Bros and a radio edit) via Murphy's label DFA to benefit cancer research. All proceeds will be directed to Beatson Cancer Charity and the Scottish Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence.
A statement from Teamy:
The thing about Keith was that, through music, he was incredible at bringing people together. I honestly think about 80% of my friends are people I met directly or indirectly through Optimo. Mhairi (vah-ree) McClymont, who is the lead vocalist here, isn’t one of them though. We went to school together and were best friends until our first or second year in university, when we kind of drifted apart only to be reunited at…Optimo.
Teamy was distraught to be a world away from McClymont when McIvor died. After hearing "The Whole Of The Moon" on the radio, he got the idea for this tribute:
I felt quite driven to make a version of it that could be played in the disco, or maybe more specifically a version that I could imagine being played at Optimo and asked Mhairi if she’d do vocals. I guess it was a way for me to offer her a way to channel the feelings that were exacerbated by the distance, for us to be close despite the distance.
Hear the Watergirls in action below.
The vinyl edition is out 10/2 and available now for pre-order via DFA.
