Athens, Georgia singer-songwriter legend Vic Chesnutt has just released the finest album of his 17 year career. No stranger to the collaborative process (Lambchop, Van Dyke Parks & Michael Stipe are among the musicians he has recorded with), Vic's latest album was recorded in Montreal with members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra & Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The broad cast of players also included amongst others, Guy Picciotto of Fugazi and former Arcade Fire drummer Howard Bilerman. The result, "North Star Deserter" sounds intimate and personal and yet at times epic, with choral style singing, wonderful string arrangements and huge waves of electric guitar feedback. "My songwriting process is a very lonely one," says Vic "It's just me locked in a room and in my own little bubble. So it¹s quite good for my heart to join in some sort of collaborative process for the recording itself."

Vic's band for this preformance features:
Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt Zion)
Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt Zion)
Jessica Moss (Silver Mt Zion)
Guy Picciotto(Fugazi) &
David Payant

VIC CHESNUTT

Vic was born in 1964 in Jacksonville, FL and was raised in Zebulon, GA. He loved music from an early age and, in fact, started writing songs when he was only five years old. He played trumpet in a high school cover band. As he got older and began buying records, his first favorites were Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. After a car accident in 1983 that left him partially paralyzed and the recuperation period that followed, Vic came to "a whole new understanding of music. The first results were what he describes as vacuous pop songs But when he discovered a book called The Norton Anthology Of Modern Poetry (its footnotes were eureka!) Vic had, for the first time, what he describes as that art feeling. It was then that his songs began to take on adult form. In the middle 80s, Vic moved to Athens, GA to study English. He formed a group called The La Di Das and began playing the clubs around town.

In 1988 he quit the band and started playing solo shows, including a summer-long residency at The 40 Watt. It was then that Michael Stipe saw Vic, repeatedly, and was moved to invite him into a recording studio. They recorded the songs that became his debut album, Little and Vics career effectively began. Vic has made 10 albums to date as well as 2 albums in collaboration with Widespread Panic under the name Brute. He was the subject of a documentary in 1992 entitled Speed Racer directed by noted indie filmmaker Peter Sillen. In 1995 he had bit part in Billy Bob Thorntons film Slingblade.

In 1996, Columbia Records put together Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation - The Songs of Vic Chesnutt, a benefit album to assist musicians with medical and financial hardship. It featured Vics songs covered by the likes of Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins, Soul Asylum, Garbage & R.E.M. In 2000, The Georgia House Of Representatives passed a resolution, honoring Vic for his off-beat musical genius and other purposes. In 2001 he wrote and performed the music for Josiah Meigs and Me, a puppet play done at St. Annes Warehouse in Brooklyn. In January of 2004, Vic participated in the Randy Newman Tribute at UCLAs Royce Hall along with Victoria Williams, Bill Frisell, Rip Torn and many others.

In June of this year, he was invited to share the bill with Rickie Lee Jones for two concerts at the prestigious Century Of Song Festival in Essen, Germany. Over the last few years he has also been speaking on songwriting and creative writing at Berklee School Of Music, Brown University and The University Of Georgia. Vic continues to tour extensively all over the world and has shared stages with the likes of R.E.M., Laura Nyro, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, John Cale, Mo Tucker, The Jayhawks, Allen Toussaint, P.J. Harvey, Wilco, Billy Swan, Giant Sand, Calexico and The Sadies

New album North Star Deserter available now on Constellation