Thirty Years on...A Crazemas Deadbeat with a Camara - for monte walters

When I was at my recent lowpoint, Frenz monte walters (Doctor Art) & his wife KoreGoddess reached out to me with words of such heartfelt kindness that I was instantly lifted up from my nadir of despair. This gift in return comes from my heart & goes out to the pair. Thank you both so much. This Crazemas gift is my celebration of your freindship.

Trinity Thirty is a celebration & reinterpretation of the much beloved Cowboy Junkies classic The Trinity Session, on the occasion of the album's 30th anniversary.

 

The idea first began to grow when DJ & Dub-inflected minimal techno-electronica recording artist Deadbeat (Berlin-based Canadian producer Scott Monteith) heard the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions version of "Sweet Jane" playing in an airport a few years back. It reminded him just how much he had loved that album. Monteith reached out to the Junkies to ask if they had anything planned to mark the platinum winning album's 30th birthday. Even before Monteith landed in Berlin, the band had replied saying they had no such plans but would enthusiastically support whatever idea Monteith/Deadbeat might have.

 

Previously Monteith had some conversations with musician/producer & fellow Canadian-in-Berlin Fatima Camara about their shared love of  The Trinity Session. He knew she'd be the perfect partner to involve in a reinterpretation. Camara was thrilled by the idea, & the two began meeting to explore how to approach things conceptually / aesthetically. This would be both their first collaboration as well as the first time either artist had featured their own vocals at the forefront of a project (with guest vocalist Caoimhe McAlister adding harmonies on certain tracks).

The Trinity Session is known for its naturalistic, profoundly languorous covers of classic traditional work songs like "I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry", "Mining for Gold", or "Blue Moon". It is almost legendary for having been recorded with a single microphone in single takes at Trinity Church in Toronto.

For Trinity Thirty, Deadbeat & Camara similarly recorded everything with ambient mics in a big open space relying heavily on natural room acoustics, committed to raw first takes, guided by an overriding strategy of slowing down all the tempos as far as they could while continuing to channel the warm asceticism of the original album.

Initially they imagining using a fair amount of electronic treatments during the mix, but instead Deadbeat & Camara found themselves absorbed by the space, silence, & atmospherics, guided by a spirit of preservation & restraint in further homage to the original.

Deadbeat sez:
     "The result is a less electronic album than we imagined making".

It emerged as a gorgeous somnambulant collection of 'covers of covers', where the reference point is always the Cowboy Junkies original approach, stretched to new limits of deceleration & narcotized spaciousness.  Clouds of textured drone & hushed vocals drift through cavernous space, where long decays gently warp, distorting the melodic vocal lines. The insistently languid percussion, anchored by thick saturated bass tones represents the most overt influence of the two creators.

Produced & recorded by Fatima Camara & Scott Monteith at the magical Studio Chez Cherie Berlin, 2016-2018. Additional vocals on tracks 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, & 11 by Caoimhe McAlister. Additional keyboards on track 6 by Ross Payzant. Mastered by Stefan Betke at Scape Mastering. 

 

Deadbeat & Camara - Trinity Thirty 2xLP, Constellation CST141, 2019.
decryption codes in comments

Side A -
Mining for Gold
Misguided Angel
Blue Moon Revisited (song for Elvis)

Side B -
I Don't Get it After Midnight (medley)
I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry
To Love is to Bury

Side C -
Dreaming My Dreams with You
200 Miles
Working on a Building

Side D -
Postcard Blues
Sweet Jane

 

 

Here's an additional stocking stuffer...

 

Deadbeat & Camara - Trinity Remixed, Deadbeat self-released, 2020

Working on a Building (Acid Dub)    
Mining for Gold (Acid Dub)    
Mining for Gold (Camara remix)

 

 

Celebrating hope this crazemas,
NØ