Packaging Notes
2xLP is pressed on 180g audiophile vinyl, and comes in a thick paperboard jacket with 12"x24" fold-out artwork insert.
CD comes in a custom paperboard mini-gatefold jacket with a printed CD dust sleeve and credits insert.
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Tracklist
1. Warm
2. Glossolalia
3. Everything I Say
4. Wallace Stevens
5. You Are Never Alone
6. Fodder On Her Wings
7. Splendid
8. Rustic City Fathers
9. Over
10. Debriefing
11. Marathon
12. Rattle
Running time: 00:57:07
Packaging Notes
2xLP is pressed on 180g audiophile vinyl, and comes in a thick paperboard jacket with 12"x24" fold-out artwork insert.
CD comes in a custom paperboard mini-gatefold jacket with a printed CD dust sleeve and credits insert.
Description
We have been massive Vic Chesnutt fans for many years. Prior to starting Constellation together in 1997, among the first records we bonded over was Is The Actor Happy, a slab of vinyl played so often (and so often late at night) that its grooves are well chewed. Our friend, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Jem Cohen (Benjamin Smoke, Instrument, Chain), had known Vic for many years. When Jem proposed that Vic make his this album at the Hotel2Tango studio in Montreal, with various Constellation musicians (along with a couple of American friends) as players for the session, we were thrilled. When we heard the results, we were floored. When offered the opportunity to release the record, we were honoured.
Vic Chesnutt was one of the finest songsmiths we have ever known. His words knock us out, his voice is like no other, and the two combined can deliver lyrical phrases that echo in your brain for weeks, months, years…that you find yourself adding to your quotidian vocabulary of sardonic asides, devastating metaphors, witty rhymes. Words that are never clever for their own sake, but smart and substantive as all get out.
The songs on North Star Deserter are some of the most bracing and intense we had yet heard from Vic: macabre and fearless, playful and funny, at times deeply personal and at others, incongruously hopeful. The broad cast of players – all seven members of Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, along with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Chad Jones & Nadia Moss (Frankie Sparo), Eric Craven & Genevieve Heistek (Hangedup), Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Esmerine) and T. Griffin (The Quavers) – offered influences and approaches to Vic’s music that yielded a record unlike any other in his substantial discography.
Recorded over the winter of 2006-2007, at one of the last sessions to take place at the original Hotel2Tango location in Montreal (the studio moved in spring 2007) with Jem overseeing production (along with Efrim and Thierry of Silver Mt Zion, and Guy from Fugazi). Recording was done by Howard Bilerman.
Thanks for listening.
Credits
Vic Chesnutt: guitar, casio, lyrics, voiceGuests
Thierry Amar: contrabasse, electric bass, singingHoward Bilerman: drums
Bruce Cawdron: bowed vibraphone and glockenspiel
Jem Cohen: field recordings
Eric Craven: skateboardthing
Beckie Foon: cello, singing
Scott Gilmore: drums
T. Griffin: guitar, field recordings
Genevieve Heistek: viola
Ian Ilavsky: singing
Chad Jones: guitar, singing
Efrim Menuck: guitar, piano, harmonium, casio, singing
Jessica Moss: violin, singing
Nadia Moss: organ, piano, singing
Guy Picciotto: guitar, field recordings
Sophie Trudeau: violin
Recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal by Howard Bilerman with Efrim Menuck and Thierry Amar, winter 2006-2007. Produced by Jem Cohen with Efrim, Thierry and Guy. Mastered at Grey Market by Harris Newman.
Reviews
"[S]taggering and inspired… You can always count on his albums to contain some of the most wonderful, wry words around, but I cannot recall when I have heard his voice in such good form… Never has he been as well-matched with his backing band as he is here. Never has he sounded so vital either." – Tiny Mix Tapes
"When…Vic Chesnutt spikes his soul-crushing songs with a wicked grin, he somehow gives discomfort a powerful allure… [T]his musician's musician once again finds a coterie of like minds…to help turn chronic disquiet into disturbingly palpable dread-folk." – SPIN
"Chesnutt is a songwriter of singular talents, embracing a homey but keenly intelligent expressionism in his songs that conveys a genuine, often touching humanity… This is powerful, adventurous music that's as challenging as it is beautiful, and ranks with Chesnutt's finest work to date." – AllMusic
"A stunning record, at all times folk, blues and old time rock music but simultaneously daringly contemporary… Huge Recommendation." – Boomkat
"[T]he harshly rough-around-the-edges tone of North Star Deserter provides a match for his bleakly self-searching narratives… [I]t's the most urgent-sounding album he has made since the mid-‘90s." – Alarm
"Picciotto and the Constellation team create the perfect atmosphere for Chesnutt's captivating words… Comparisons aside, this is arguable one of the best albums, projects and ideas of the year." – Stylus
Related Releases
At The Cut Vic Chesnutt
Empires of Tin Jem Cohen
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