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Songs We Love: Hope Sandoval, 'Let Me Get There (Feat. Kurt Vile)'

With both Mazzy Star and her band The Warm Inventions, singer Hope Sandoval has helped perfect an impeccably shimmering sound that's ideally suited to her gorgeous, approachable voice. Both simple and difficult for others to duplicate — though it's inspired many, including the likes of Beach House — her formula has produced a major classic (1993's "Fade Into You") and a decades-long marathon of lovable deep cuts, released at an appropriately deliberate pace.

Back in 2013, when Mazzy Star released its first album in 17 years, it seemed as if Sandoval had put her solo career on hold — her last full-length solo project, Through The Devil Softly, came out in 2009. But she returns Nov. 4 with Until The Hunter, which features this collaboration with Philly rocker Kurt Vile, whose laconic cool meshes perfectly with the warm glow of Sandoval's voice.

The video for "Let Me Get There," directed by Sandoval herself, is kept pretty simple — just mouths superimposed over the floating heads of statues for four minutes. But the song itself requires no adornment, as it captures just the right blend of singers, sensibilities and rich, radiant guitar sounds.


Until The Hunter comes out Nov. 4 on Tendril Tales via INgrooves.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)