PRESS RELEASE

WHEN! RECORDS PRESENT…
BERT JANSCH: CRIMSON MOON
WHEN! WENCD211 – RELEASED MONDAY JUNE 26 2000

Bert Jansch, legendary Scots troubadour and guitar hero, releases Crimson Moon, his brand new album on the When! label (a division of Castle Music) on Monday, June 26.

Crimson Moon is a musically diverse, melodically rich and colourful collection that could well be Bert’s finest album of recent years. It is the first album in his career that Bert has produced and engineered entirely himself, so he has had total control over the end result. Together with Bert’s own customary superlative instrumental work, Crimson Moon also features guest appearances from contemporary guitar greats Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler, who have been long-time fans of Bert. There are also appearances from Bert’s friend Johnny ‘Guitar’ Hodge, his son Adam Jansch and his wife Loren Jansch. However, Crimson Moon is still very much a Jansch album, on which he excels on both acoustic and electric guitar and his gritty vocals sit perfectly amongst the musical superstructure.

Every track is outstanding. Special mention could be given to tracks such as Caledonia, a warm travelogue/tribute to his home land, Crimson Moon, the mellow title track, the epic Fool’s Mate, or Downunder, a sparkling guitar duet. Or perhaps one might choose the stark, skeletal Neptune’s Daughter, where Bert builds a narrative on a framework of his own classical guitar accompaniment, or the reflective The River Bank. The whole album is a marvellously assured, coherent work that is sure to figure in many a pundit’s ‘best of the year’ listings come the close of Y2K.

The release of Crimson Moon coincides with the screening of Dreamweaver, a major documentary on Bert, to be broadcast on Channel Four on Wednesday, June 28, and the publication by Bloomsbury of the long-awaited biography of Bert by Irish journalist/writer Colin Harper. Castle will also undertake a major reissue programme on Bert’s extensive back catalogue commencing in the Autumn of 2000, which will go right back to his first recordings for the Transatlantic label.

May 2000 - WHEN! RECORDS IS A DIVISION OF CASTLE MUSIC