What you say
No-one has reviewed North Star Deserter by Vic Chesnutt yet.
What we say
 This record left our Phil feeling happy.
I've never really heard any Vic Chesnutt before. Hey you know what it's like... There's a lot of records released and then you're plundering back catalogues....there's just not enough hours in the day. Well now I get to (finally) hear him with his new CD and LP on Constellation. I have to say 'North Star Deserter' is a joy from start to end. The word melancholy sums it up succinctly as it's a well mardy listen. There's a lot of power and emotion in the guy's music. Musicians on the album include all of A Silver Mt Zion, Guy Picciotto from Fugazi, folks from Hanged Up & Esmerine. It's classy stuff, powerful and emotive music which will last with you for years and haunt you at night times. Nice!
What the label says:
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), has known Vic for many years. When Jem proposed that Vic make his next 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 is one of the finest songsmiths we know. 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've ever heard from him: macabre and fearless, playful and funny, at times deeply personal and at others, incongruously hopeful. Stripped-down songs like "Warm", "Rustic City Fathers", "Over" and "Marathon" are juxtaposed with explosive rockers like "Everything I Say" and "Debriefing", while "Glossolalia" and "You Are Never Alone" feature wonderful arrangements and group singing.
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), we believe North Star Deserter is the very best album Vic Chesnutt has yet made (while humbly acknowledging the boldness of such a statement). The sessions were orchestrated by Jem, who also oversaw production (along with Efrim and Thierry of Silver Mt. Zion, and Guy from Fugazi). The album was recorded by Howard Bilerman. The record is available on CD and double 180g LP, with artwork by Michael Ackerman and Jem Cohen.
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