Team Dresch – “St. Ides Heaven” (Elliott Smith Cover)Team Dresch – “St. Ides Heaven” (Elliott Smith Cover)

The ’90s queercore greats Team Dresch reissued their entire catalogue and shared their first new song in nearly two decades in 2019. And today, they’re back with a new cover of Elliott Smith’s 1995 track “St. Ides Heaven” for Stars Rock Kill (Rock Stars), the venerated Pacific Northwest indie label Kill Rock Stars’ 30th anniversary cover singles series. In a statement, Team Dresch say:

We can’t imagine a world without this record label. Nothing would be the same if Kill Rock Stars hadn’t sprung up in 1991, in the hands of Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, giving control and license and fair splits to their bands, and releasing groundbreaking raw punk beauty into the world. Political movements spoke through the platform and an entire era of music was spawned into life. That life has kept giving birth again and again to phenomenal-masterpiece-genius artists. We had the good fortune of knowing and playing with Elliott in the Portland, Oregon scene of the 90s. We were all as heartbroken as everybody else over his death, and as it always is with a songwriter whose songs have such haunting depth, his music is his spirit living on.

We decided to cover “St. Ides Heaven” because it’s one of our favorite songs. The harmonies between Elliott and Rebecca Gates push and pull at your guts and the elegance of the melodies melt you into the musical void. We put our own Team sound to it, while trying to maintain the integrity of the original composition. The song was recorded by the awesome Adam Selzer in Portland, Oregon, mixed by longtime collaborator John Goodmanson’s divine ear, and not possible without Rob Jones [of Jealous Butcher Records and Kill Rock Stars] at the helm. St. Ides Heaven is an absolutely beautiful song, we feel honored to have been asked to record it, and lucky as hell to be part of the celebration of Kill Rock Stars turning 30!

Listen below.