Tortured Soul: Makin’ Me Better

Tortured Soul continues to make lovely music you can make love to. “Makin’ Me Better” is pure soul: driven ahead on the carriage of John-Christian Urich’s percussion and one of his best vocal performances on record. Fingers dance across the keys and the vocal slides between layer upon layer of harmonies.

The original has an uptempo manic quality that I like best. Malachi isolates the main vocal in his remix, making it into a churning, clubby number. I’m actually quite a fan of this as well: the tone is so different than the original, with a cool, laconic sheen that never entirely shakes off the bright-eyed optimism of John-Christian Urich’s message.