Chelsea Spear’s lo-fi ukulele-pop project releases a fully licensed cover of the Sparks classic on today (September 6th) with the video to soon follow

We recently had the breathtaking experience to listen to the new single “Tryouts For The Human Race , from Travels With Brindle .

Travels With Brindle is the lo-fi ukulele pop project from Massachusetts songwriter and artist Chelsea Spear. “Tryouts For The Human Race” is the fully licensed cover of Sparks’ ‘70s classic tune. You can listen to “Tryouts For The Human Race “ Here and on Bandcamp Here .

Chelsea Spear is an artist in every sense of the word . Travels With Brindle is an artistic lens that Spear uses to artfully bring meaningful stories to life. Chelsea Spear elegantly adds a wonderful new perspective on “Tryouts For The Human Race “ from Sparks.

Recorded at the Boston Public Library, “Tryouts For The Human Race” kicks off a bit of a Sparks era for Spear, as it not only serves as the follow-up to last year’s literary-minded Notes From Undergrad album, but sets the tone for her latest covers record, a ukulele and banjolele reimagining of Sparks’ entire Georgio Moroder-produced disco album “No. 1 in Heaven”, due next year.

“One of the things that hit me about Sparks is how effective they are at pastiche and at making genres their own,” says Spear. “It feels like they learn the rules of a genre just so they can subvert them. The fact that Sparks inspire such strong feelings among their fanbase also lends itself well to cover songs – you can hear the joy in the recording.”

The track’s vocals were engineered by Spear’s longtime trusted collaborator Joel Edinberg, with ukulele arrangement by Sage Harrington and mastering by Josh Cohen. Spear helmed the ukulele recording and track mixing, and Catherine Maddux supplied the textured sleeve cover art. 

Spear says the effort put in, both for “Tryouts For The Human Race” and the forthcoming record, was worth the time and investment.

“Tryouts For The Human Race “ from Travels With Brindle is a beautiful example of how artistic interpretation can give joyous new life to a classic.