| March 24, 2016
Toronto ON — Today, in response to the not guilty verdicts in the Jian Ghomeshi sexual assualt trial, Art Bergmann released the track “Cassandra,” from his forthcoming album The Apostate, due out digitally on April 8, and in physical formats on May 13 through (weewerk) Recordings.
Here is Art’s description of the song: “Cassandra was a princess of Troy. Apollo took her under his wing and guided her gifts of perception and prophecy. When he had finished, he expected her to fuck him. She refused, he raped her and then he spit in her mouth as a curse that she — despite being a prophetess — wouldn’t be believed. She saw what was going to happen to Troy: that Paris would take Helena; the Trojan Horse ….no one believed her. I have been Cassandra, all women have at one point in their lives.
“What to do with violent men? My better half, Sherri Decembrini got it right for me, after I made the mistake on first writing that I thought I might know how it would feel to be the woman, hence the line ‘I’ll never know how it feels to be a woman.’ We think we are more civilized than other cultures.”
The Apostate is Art Bergmann’s first full-length album in 18 years, and for that reason alone should be considered a triumph in the face of his once-debilitating health issues, and a music industry that seemingly no longer held a place for him. That aside, The Apostate is also a triumph simply because it is the best work he has ever done during his four decades as a recording artist, from the seminal Vancouver punk band the Young Canadians, to his four acclaimed solo albums in the 1980s and ‘90s, culminating with the JUNO Award-winningWhat Fresh Hell Is This?
Art Bergmann’s voice has been missing from our national consciousness for far too long, but it is back with a vengeance on The Apostate. Now residing in Airdrie, Alberta, Art worked with Calgary-based producer Lorrie Matheson and a stellar group of multi-instrumentalists to craft sounds suited to the subject matter of each song—the hazy Americana of “Atheist Prayer,” the mesmerizing North African majesty of “Mirage (The Apostate),” the ragged Stones-y groove of “Live It Up,” the epic sweep of the 12-minute “Pioneers,” and the stark intimacy of “The Legend Of Bobby Bird.”
Art Bergmann’s attitude has never changed since he made his first recordings in the late 1970s, even as his sound inevitably evolved. After so long in the wilderness, The Apostate is the album he needed to make, and all of us now need to hear.
Listen To Cassandra HERE |
