St. Catherine’s Child is the project of singer-songwriter Ilana Zsigmond, whose work moves between England and Connecticut. Their 2025 album This Might Affect You has already surpassed four million streams and has begun airing in press circles including The Line of Best Fit and Hot Press. Following increased visibility they signed with TRO Essex Music and its label arm Shamus Records, home to artists such as Chris Matthews and Flammy Grant, along with a catalog spanning Woody Guthrie, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath.
The project’s latest release is a double cover of two well-known classics, re-imagined with a gritty, cinematic sensibility that feels distinctly Ilana’s. These include “Cosmic Dancer” by T. Rex and “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard, best known through Frank Sinatra’s iconic version.
For “Fly Me to the Moon”, Ilana chose a slow ballad approach with dark, moody blues-rock and even some post-punk gestures. Background reverb, clockwork heartbeats, and haunting vocals turn the song on its head, delivering a desert Gothic Americana aesthetic in place of the romantic jazz-swing usually associated with NASA.
On the other hand, T.Rex’s melodic psychedelic masterpiece “Cosmic Dancer” moves into sinister new territory, as Ilana transforms it into a melancholy piano and synth-string driven piece. Her approach on this song is especially amazing because of how much vulnerability and sadness she conveys in the vocals. This cover is so emotionally compelling, it can only be compared to Morrissey x Bowie’s own live performance in 1991.
On paper, these two songs share almost nothing. One is a slippery, minor-key piece that relies on fortitude and self-consciousness, set against a bolero-like rhythm. The second is a major-key, waltz-time swing standard about a romantic escape. Brought together and re-imagined through the creative lens of St. Catherine Child, they paint a portrait of an artist unafraid of risk, guided by a clear and confident vision.
Both covers quietly suffer from the same deep human longing. Ilana reaches out to the chaos of the universe in one and merges into the intimacy of love in the other, two classics that were always asking the same questions from opposite ends of the universe.
