Transcending Desire, Finding Desperation

The Twilight Singers' members, along with Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan (not pictured), craft a hypnotic, sinister rock song. hide caption

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Featuring soul singer Terry Callier on lead vocals, Massive Attack's sultry, passionate "Live With Me" exudes heavily orchestrated emotion that seems out of character with the group's icier ambient fare. In the hands of two great cult singers — Greg Dulli of The Twilight Singers and Afghan Whigs, as well as Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan — the cinematic original becomes a hypnotic, sinister rock song.

Dulli and Lanegan recorded their take on "Live With Me" for a new Twilight Singers EP, A Stitch In Time, which provides a nice teaser for an album-length collaboration (as The Gutter Twins) later this year.

"I've been thinking about you baby / Almost makes me crazy / Come and live with me," Lanegan sings, his whiskey-soaked voice exuding characteristic menace. The tone transcends desire and enters — again, characteristically — into desperation: Over an ominous slide guitar, washes of electric guitars and a pulsing backbeat, the pleas get pushed into ever more unnerving territory, thanks to two great singers who know their way around it.

Listen to yesterday's 'Song of the Day.'