The Antlers have gifted an orchestral re-imagination of
their track sublime track “No Widows” from last year’s Onomatopoeia favorite Burst Apart. “Empty Castles (No
Widows refracted)” was created by cellist Brent Arnold, who says of the track:
“I knew I wanted to work with this track as soon as I heard
it. The lyrics really haunted me. I recorded many of the cellos in a library in
a castle in Burgundy… no joke! I had in mind a kind of rolling, pulsing
feeling, rising and falling. Everything I made is of course quite different
than the original, except for the big harmonies in the chorus– for that part, I
tried to tease out each layer of vocals and play them exactly on the cello,
which was tricky as they’re very intertwined. But I wanted to be more literal
there, because there’s something very special about the way those lines work
together.”
