“I Wish” as put to vinyl by Stevie Wonder in 1976 contains your recommended daily minimum of joy. Yet the jazzy instrumental cover whipped up last year by Polish guitarist Marcin and Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino is so infectious, so irrepressible, that it almost renders the original tame in comparison. [3:17]
That’s among the more recent music links I’ve been sitting on for too long. I’ll round
out this post with another cover and another instrumental, both employed in a pivotal episode of Vince Gilligan’s brilliant Apple TV series Pluribus — a chapter loaded with songs, within and external to its narrative, as enumerated in a Decider article which you might not want to read if you get kitschy ’80s pop like Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” stuck in your head easily. (Oops! Sorry.)
First is the haunting rendition of “Aquarius” from Hair that plays over the end credits, produced by the mononymous Nasaya featuring his frequent collaborator Maro and her fellow Portuguese vocalist Ana Moura. Sony Music Portugal announced back in December that Pluribus’ Season One soundtrack would include the full piece, but it doesn’t, so I’m breaking my general rule of not linking to unauthorized content to share a bit of this exceptional sonic art that I’d like to just live inside for a while. [1:36]
Watching the episode, I mistook Hermanos Gutiérrez’ 2021 recording “Esperanza”
to be an engrossing passage in Dave Porter’s instrumental score. The image above is a screenshot of its animated music video as created by Maria Medem. [2:52]
“Esperanza” is available in a longer version as a single and on Hermanos Gutiérrez’ compilation Eternamente as well as on the Pluribus soundtrack album that is bereft of “Aquarius” dangit. The single and first album can be purchased on Bandcamp. All can be found in the Apple Music store, which also has the Marcin / Hayato Sumino
“I Wish” gem via Sony Masterworks.
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