Corbin Murdoch

After five years together, Corbin Murdoch & The Nautical Miles are set to release their most ambitious project to date. Wartime Lovesong, the band’s third studio album and first on Jericho Beach Music, was recorded in June of 2008 at the Hive in Burnaby, BC with engineer/producer Jesse Gander (Buttless Chaps, Pride Tiger, The Pack A.D.) The band has always sought to create emotionally complex folk music, both lyrically and orchestrationally. With Wartime Lovesong they have created a song cycle of generational proportions.

Murdoch’s writing is his strongest yet. The album traces the trials of a generation desperately seeking a purpose in an uncertain world. The songs are rich in historical context, from revolutionary Situationist slogans of Paris in the 60’s to Pierre Trudeau quotations to contemporary ecological theory, yet remain grounded, honest, and accessible. Using his relationship with his grandmother and sister as the album’s emotional core, Murdoch has woven together a song cycle that is at once politically charged and highly personal.

A departure from their previous subject matter, Wartime Lovesong is sonically more ambitious as well. Nautical Miles’ drummer Lucas Schuller scored much of the album for brass quintet with arrangements complementing Murdoch’s expression from the understated to the bombastic; the militaristic to the sacred. The album starts and ends with an emotive horn chorale, and is bisected by steel guitar ace Tim Tweedale’s haunting interpretation of Steve Goodman’s anti-war classic ‘The Ballad of Penny Evans’. The record also features powerful guest vocal appearances from Debra-Jean Creelman (formerly of Mother Mother), Jess Hill, Melisa Devost, and Lyndsay Poaps.