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Old Chestnut

by Ned Collette

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  • Digital Album
    Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €10 EUR  or more

    You own this

     

  • Feeding Tube Records 1st Edition: Double Vinyl in Single Cover w. A3 insert.
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    2x12" vinyl in single cover w. 6mm spine. White innersleves and printed poster insert. Hand-drawn cover artwork by Maria Torres. Black vinyl. Edition of 300. Mastered beautifully and cut for vinyl by Rashad Becker at D&M in Berlin. Includes download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Old Chestnut via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • IT Records Deluxe Edition: Double Vinyl in Gatefold Cover. Limited Edition of 300.
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    EUROPEAN STOCK SOLD OUT, BUT COPIES CAN STILL BE ORDERED FROM AUSTRALIA: itrecordsmelb.bandcamp.com/album/old-chestnut

    2x12" vinyl in deluxe gatefold cover w. 6mm spine and lyric printed innersleeves. Hand-drawn cover artwork by Maria Torres. Black vinyl. Edition of 300. Mastered beautifully and cut for vinyl by Rashad Becker at D&M in Berlin. Includes download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Old Chestnut via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • It Records Limited Edition CD
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    ATT: AUSTRALIAN ORDERS WILL BE CHEAPER IF ORDERED DIRECT FROM
    itrecordsmelb.bandcamp.com/album/old-chestnut

    Long playing CD in gatefold card sleeve. Four page lyric insert. Hand-drawn cover artwork by Maria Torres. Limited to 300.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Old Chestnut via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • 2nd Pressing: Super limited 2LP split-colour swirl edition
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMERS CAN ALSO ORDER DIRECT FROM itrecordsmelb.bandcamp.com/album/old-chestnut

    LIMITED TO 50 COPIES WORLDWIDE! Only 10 available here. 2x12" split bottle green/bluebell swirl vinyl in single jacket w. 6mm spine. Includes lyric printed innersleeves and colour A3 poster. Hand-drawn cover artwork by Maria Torres. Mastered beautifully and cut for vinyl by Rashad Becker at D&M in Berlin. Includes download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Old Chestnut via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • 2nd Pressing: Limited 2LP coloured vinyl edition
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    AUSTRALIAN CUSTOMERS CAN ALSO ORDER DIRECT FROM itrecordsmelb.bandcamp.com/album/old-chestnut

    2x12" bottle green/bluebell vinyl in single jacket w. 6mm spine. Limited to 450 worldwide. Includes lyric printed innersleeves and colour A3 poster. Hand-drawn cover artwork by Maria Torres. Mastered beautifully and cut for vinyl by Rashad Becker at D&M in Berlin. Includes download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Old Chestnut via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
Oh Man 05:31
2.
3.
Grant's Farm 07:14
4.
5.
Carriage Six 03:36
6.
Sacred Cats 08:03
7.
The Optimist 04:54
8.
Sunday 04:13
9.
June 11:09
10.
Shinobazu 03:13
11.
Snaky Song 05:31
12.
Wakanui 04:43
13.
14.
Animal Swoon 02:29

about

"Finding its way out into the world via IT records and Feeding Tube, Ned Collette’s monumental folk opus Old Chestnut is a spare and haunted record feeling its way through the heavy end of the acoustic spectrum. While there are some great players on the album, including long standing percussionist partner Joe Talia, and a cameo from Chris Abrahams of The Necks, the album is essentially a soul bared by an artist alone on his own terms. There’s a grey pallor that hangs about Old Chestnut, somber and soulful, craggy and careful. Collette brings to mind the skill sets of Roy Harper and Bert Jansch put to use with dry calculation of Jim O’Rourke and the steadfast intensity of Leonard Cohen.

At times he even brings to mind the storyteller soul of Lee Hazlewood, but Collette doesn’t share the winking humor or Lee or the aforementioned Roy Harper. Instead the album prefers the curtains drawn and the bath topped and teaming, with a curl of incense and candle flickering along with the strums. Don’t let that paint the album as hopeless, or dour, though, its contemplative, introspective and measured, but its not slipping down the drain with the remains of the bath. Instead he tucks in and revels in detached soul searching like the best half of the Waters penned Floyd years.

Despite being recorded over four years, the album paints a song cycle that’s cohesive and immediate. Collette captures a corner of folk that’s not been wrung dry over the years. The artist isn’t interested in the slightest that a song sticks to the listener through traditionally memorable means, instead he’s working to press it into the skin with the sheer weight of his writing. He has the ability to sparkle in runs of fingerpicking that lean towards the Takoma school, but he’s more tender than technical. He dips into the English tradition of Canterbury classics, but spirals the songs down a well of darkness that’s meatier than the Middle Ages could contain. Towards the end he looses the ties of folk altogether, letting noise and electricity overcome the atmosphere and bury the album in cinder and ash. Its not an album that can be listened to lightly and warrants multiple listens to let Collette’s full vision sink in, but once its under your skin, Old Chestnut is hard to shake." RAVENSINGSTHEBLUES

"Through dappled meadows and twilight forests... this hazy spellbound folk" ★★★★ MOJO (Martin Aston)

★★★★ THE AUSTRALIAN (Doug Wallen)

“Most Beguiling” 7/10 UNCUT (Wyndham Wallace)

“One of the albums of the year” ADDICT CULTURE FRANCE

“Some of his most lucid, literate compositions yet” CLASH MAGAZINE UK (Robin Murray)

"It flourishes effortlessly, remaining captivating as it offers up the pastoral with the cosmic and exists as a skilfully modern exploration of songwriting.” 4ZZZ BRISBANE (Nicholas J. Rodwell)

"Old Chestnut is a haunting prog-folk song cycle for the ages… Collette has made a goddamn whale of an album." FEEDING TUBE RECORDS (Byron Coley)

“Gentle, fragile, tender, intimate. The perfect salve for Anthropocene madness.” AN ARTICULATE FAN on bandcamp



Ned Collette’s 6th album to be released on It Records (Australia) and Feeding Tube (U.S.A) on August 24th 2018.

Old Chestnut ​is the stunning new double album from Melbourne/Berlin singer songwriter Ned Collette: ​Old Chestnut​. A truly accomplished work, a gorgeous dark folk opus, fleshed out in lush but precise and sparkling instrumentation thanks to a band of extraordinary collaborators. Featuring regular Wirewalker cohorts Joe Talia (who also co- produced the album with Collette) and Ben Bourke, plus Alexander Garsden, cellist Anthea Caddy, and piano from The Necks’ Chris Abrahams ​on the album’s monolithic centrepiece, ‘June’.

Ned says that ​Old Chestnut​ is the first album he has made that “​feels like the albums I always wanted to make. It’s just messy enough, elaborate enough, simple enough, improvised and collaborative enough...​” and it does feel like ​Old Chestnut ​is an elevation, and that with it, he has attained a level of songcraft that transcends his already impressive back catalogue. With snippets written as far back as 2008 and 4 years since his last album release, it’s been a long journey. The resultant work is cohesive and articulate in a way few albums are. A mixture of melancholy balladry interwoven with daedal and often delicate instrumentals that not only frame and anchor the “songs” but beautifully showcase the calibre of Collette’s arrangements and musicianship. This is the record that will etch the name Ned Collette into the lexicon of great Australian songwriters.

credits

released August 24, 2018

Ned Collette — voice, guitar, piano, bass, synths, percussion, recorder

Joe Talia — drums, machines, drum machines

Ben Bourke — Moog and vocals on Sacred Cats, vocals on Snaky Song

Anthea Caddy — vocals on Grant’s Farm, cello on The Optimist, cello and vocals on June 

Alexander Garsden — steel string guitar on The Optimist 



& Chris Abrahams — piano on June 


Recorded and mixed by Ned Collette and Joe Talia 
in Berlin and Melbourne 


Mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

Cover Artwork by Maria Torres

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