Sunny Day Real Estate's landmark debut album, Diary, just turned 20 this past weekend. Frontman Jeremy Enigk, most likely in honor of the anniversary, took to SoundCloud to share a four-track demo of "In Circles," quite possibly the band's best-loved song. Stream it above.
In contrast with the original version's alternation between delicate verses and gut-busting choruses, this demo is a slower, acoustic solo performance by Enigk, who mostly eschews the powerful screams that highlighted the studio version in favor of a haunting falsetto. The "In Circles" demo definitely lacks some of the bombast and dynamic range of the original, but offers a great look into the creative process that went into transforming the earliest SDRE songs from Enigk's acoustic strummers into epic tracks that would lay the blueprint for modern emo.
Diary has been honored by a number of great retrospective essays in the past few days, so if you'd like to learn more about its legacy, read these pieces by Ian Cohen and Patric Fallon. Sunny Day Real Estate also released their first new song in 14 years, "Lipton Witch," just last month, so be sure to check that out right here on Zumic.
