Since 2019, Bathe Alone has been steadily dropping buzzworthy singles that culminated in her full-length debut, Last Looks, released earlier this year. The brainchild of Bailey Crone (also of dream folk duo Mango Cat), Bathe Alone is known for her haunting vocals and otherworldly textures. As the artist herself puts it on her Bandcamp page, it’s the sort of hypnotic music you want to “lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling to.” Think of the breathtaking dreampop conjured by Beach House or fellow ATL locals Lunar Vacation, and you’ll begin to get a sense of the ethereal waters the emerging songstress likes to swim in.

On “Take a Bow,” Bailey reimagines Madonna’s 1994 sentimental ballad as an indie-pop anthem. While the cover isn’t slated for release on her next album, it’s the first tease into what she and producer Damon Moon have been cooking up in the studio. In the video, she plays vintage synths (a Roland JX-3P and a Casiotone CT 310), a bone-white Stratocaster, all while oozing stone-cold charisma. It’s got enough chutzpah to even make the Queen of Pop herself take notice. All in all, it’s a stunning reinvention of an already gorgeous song, an impressive feat considering the fateful circumstances that led to the track’s creation.

“I put out an Instagram post asking listeners to name a song they’d like me to cover,” Bailey says. “I sifted through all the responses and was extremely close to picking someone’s request for ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC, but a listener with the username letter2elise commented, ‘Take a Bow – Madonna.’ I had never heard the song before but being a huge Cyndi Lauper fan, I was instantly into the idea of covering another 80’s pop queen. I originally released the cover on YouTube with my demo audio that I produced at home. I had tracked, mixed, and mastered it all by myself. But then people were asking me to put it on Spotify. I liked the song too, but only wanted to put music on my Spotify and for sale if it’s up to the standards of my other studio music that’s professionally tracked and mixed. So I brought it into Damon’s studio at Standard Electric and we re-tracked all the vocals, guitars, drums and added other goodies into the mix. We kept a lot of my demo stems, like my JX-3P, Casio, and my husband ‘snapping’ because sometimes the magic is in the performance, not the equipment. This was the first song where I really utilized my JX-3P’s pitch bend and LFO effects, and I realized you can get so much more emotion out of a performance with that mobility. At the time, we were working on my second record in tandem, and we even went back into tracks to re-perform synth parts just to get that extra emotion. Pitch bend on the JX-3P is really a highlight for me on the second record, especially on the last song ‘4u.’ All thanks to ‘Take a Bow’ for helping me explore and find another tool to add to my belt.”

Watch/listen above.

More Info
Facebook: @bathealone
Bandcamp: bathealone.bandcamp.com
Instagram: @bathealone
Twitter: @bathemusic
SoundCloud: @bathealone