I’ve already gushed about John Vanderslice’s fantastic new album Romanian Names a few days back, (I’m also in the midst of writing a piece for NPR Music about Vanderslice, so stay tuned for that). But I came across a few videos on YouTube that really show off one of my favorite songs off the record, “Too Much Time.”

On the album, the song takes on a much darker tone, a bit of a mix of electronic and new wave perhaps; almost Cure-like.

But as you can hear in these various versions below, Vanderslice has obviously toyed around with the arrangements for the different live settings. I always find it interesting to hear how a song progresses from its beginnings to how the production ends up on the final album. Take a listen:

Striped down, acoustic version for KEXP

A less striped down version with violin:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1r1RAzjV9U[/youtube]

A fuller version with The Magik*Magik Orchestra:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3073010[/vimeo]