Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo Cover Pat Benatar Classic

05-03-2023

Album art

(MUTE) Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo have shared the latest track from their forthcoming collaborative album, Phantasmagoria in Blue, that is due out on vinyl, CD and digitally on September 1st, 2023 via Mute.

Watch the video for their take on "Love is a Battlefield", where the tempo is brought down from Pat Benatar's classic 1983 hit to create an evocative paean to the complex nature of love in turmoil.

"The idea for a version of 'Love is a Battlefield' came from a friend, Emma Pursey", Mick explains, "who was making an independent version of the Sam Shepherd play 'Fool for Love' and wanted it as the song in the production. It immediately seemed logical to create it as a duet and, indeed, the verse lyrics - which go almost unnoticed in the Pat Benatar version - lent themselves perfectly to this treatment and a country style arrangement. It wasn't used in the end, but the idea of a version of the song had lodged in my mind and I took the possibility of recording it to Amanda for our project."

Amanda picks up the story, "At first I wasn't sure if he was serious about it as it was a very different choice from all the other songs we were doing. But once we started working on it, it immediately became evident that it might be one of the strongest tracks on our album and both of us started developing it together.

In making the video I was inspired by Emma and the play, I filmed my parts in a very iconic and ancient historic venue in San Luis Potosí called 'Cineteca Alameda' which functions as a cultural center. And I thought it would be fun to have Mick projected on the screen. Both of us work as narrators for this story and two actors represent the lyrics of the song in what is supposed to be the play rehearsal. In the video all realities interact in one big dream or hallucination and the location and timeline becomes slightly warped. I'm very happy with the result and I'm looking forward to finding out what people think."