Description
Label Review.
2002 album with bonus 'Morning Star' disc of unreleased songs from the sessions.
Our Overview.
The American singer-songwriter artist and poet Joseph Arthur was the first non-world music artist to be signed to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records and since then Joseph and his muse have continued to work together. Over the course of his career to date, he's released fourteen albums under his own name, eleven official EP's and has been involved with several high profile side projects including Fistful Of mercy (with Ben Harper & Dhani Harrison).
However, when it was brought to Arthur's attention that 2017 marked the 15th Anniversary of one of his most beloved albums, ‘Redemption's Son’, his third for Real World, he decided he wanted to do something to honour the occasion. So now to mark the event the label are reissuing the album on CD as a new 15th Anniversary 2CD edition and also making it available for the first time on LP, pressed on deluxe 180g vinyl.
Consistently inspired, occasionally frazzled and often startlingly beautiful, ‘Redemption’s Son’s rich textures, vulnerability and acute, poetic lyrics are guaranteed to raise goosebumps. The album also includes an album’s worth of previously unreleased material. ‘Morning Star’ is a collection of ‘Redemption’s Son’ era songs that have been selectively preserved in a time capsule waiting for the perfect time.
"We decided to turn these tracks into their own album called 'Morning Star' rather than a collection of this that and the other thing," Arthur remarked. "It's a great feeling when the past burps up a gift. Things forgotten and submerged by the vortex of time which reveals its illusions thru a process such as this. First listens of old things are a lot like taking the wrapping paper off a gift. That excited smile comes over you (hopefully) and it's kinda wonderful. But soon you get transported back to the time these things were new and then they become fresh elements to work with. No more a gift but a responsibility. Like if you got a dog for Christmas. What they say about a work of art being never finished but abandoned is accurate. And I learned here that you can essentially un-abandon them. We took these old things and we set out to make something current."
Joseph Arthur will also be embarking on a limited run solo tour beginning on June 20th in Boston where he'll play the album from beginning to end. "I've never done this album from start to finish live," Arthur remarked. "But Redemption's Son was always a special record to me and my fans and this clearly seemed like the right time to do it. As I've been saying recently to my friends, listening to this album again after all of these years has re-inspired me which honestly was a complete surprise."‘
Morning Star’ is available as the second disc in the 2CD edition and as a digital download included with the double vinyl. All the material is also available as a standalone digital download album.