- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Vic Chesnutt
Album: At the Cut
Label: Constellation
Playtime: 43:52 min
Genre: Indie
URL: http://cstrecords.com/releases/cst060
Rip date: 2009-09-21
Street date: 2009-09-22
Size: 51.31 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 154 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
Vic Chesnutt is the real deal, a man who lives for music and who has
tirelessly deployed his impish, surly, witty, unflinching perspective in
hundreds of songs featuring brilliantly unique wordsmithery and a profound
playfulness that thumbs its nose at a life of seriously hard knocks. VicÆs
prolific writing û chock of full of real irony, wonderful turns of phrase,
humour, rage and tenderness, brutal literalism and ornate observation û
constitutes a truly original voice and reflects a truly indomitable spirit.
Chesnutt has worked with many collaborators over his twenty-year music
career. His first album for Constellation, North Star Deserter (2007),
featured the members of Silver Mt. Zion (among other label-affiliated
musicians in ConstellationÆs home town of Montreal) and FugaziÆs Guy
Picciotto. USA music magazine Paste ranked this album the best of his
numerous collaborative records over the last dozen years. North Star Deserter
was highly acclaimed and signaled a true return to form for Vic Chesnutt, but
remained criminally overlooked in the USA. A core group of players emerged
from this first recording to accompany Vic on two European tours in support
of the album: Thierry Amar (bass), Efrim Menuck (guitar), Jessica Moss
(violin) and David Payant (drums) all of Silver Mt. Zion, along with Guy
Picciotto (guitar). Together with studio members (and occasional live
players) Nadia Moss (piano, organ) and Chad Jones (guitar), this same troupe
has reunited for VicÆs second Constellation album, once again recorded by
Howard Bilerman at Hotel2Tango in Montreal.
At The Cut picks up where North Star Deserter left off, with the explosive
opening tune ôCowardö displaying all the epic soaring thrust this band is
capable of. Vic debuted this song as part of Jem CohenÆs æfilm hallucinationÆ
Empires Of Tin when it was performed live with the touring band at the 2007
Vienna Film Festival. Re-recorded for At The Cut, it certainly does cut to
the chase, as Vic bellows ôI am a cowardö to trigger a massive unison
instrumental line, reinforcing the tuneÆs double-edged opening lyric (and
Frank Norris quote) ôThe courage of the coward û greater than all othersö.
From this bracing beginning, however, At The Cut quickly changes temperature
and temperament, settling into what is arguably the most intimate, pensive
and heartbreaking work of Vic ChesnuttÆs career. Cowardice, courage,
mortality, tenacity, defiance, mourning and memory are its themes. Throughout
the album, and even on the two tracks that blister and blast with this
rocking band û ôCowardö and ôPhilip Gustonö û there is a lyrical intimacy and
directness, a searingly raw honesty to VicÆs voice and words, that finds no
parallel in his body of work to date.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Coward ( 5:16)
02. When the Bottom Fell Out ( 3:10)
03. Chinaberry Tree ( 4:10)
04. Chain ( 2:59)
05. We Hovered with Short Wings ( 5:14)
06. Philip Guston ( 3:27)
07. Concord Country Jubilee ( 4:32)
08. Flirted with You All My Life ( 4:41)
09. It Is What It Is ( 6:58)
10. Granny ( 3:25)
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