MICHAEL CHAPMAN: TRUE NORTH (PoB-044)

Michael Chapman’s masterful new album True North is out today worldwide, now available to stream, download, and purchase from your favorite ethereal or concrete marketplace. Read on for the rapturous praise from the likes of The Times, The Wire, MOJO, Uncut, The Guardian, Associated Press, Aquarium Drunkard, and more. Check out the wine-red edition of the LP via our unboxing video below and pour yourself a nice glass of red wine while you listen and pine for your copy to arrive in the post.

If you missed the recent Aquarium Drunkard feature about Chapman’s 1960s photography, some of which is featured on the jacket of True North, you can catch up here or below.

$9.00 – $31.00

Or support via:  Bandcamp  (LP/CD/DL/stream) |  Other Options (LP/CD/DL/stream) | Local Record Stores

TRUE NORTH UNBOXING VIDEO

[youtube https://youtu.be/Ag8uCJGlpig]

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4 stars. With his acoustic compatriots Bert Jansch, Davey Graham, and John Renbourn gone, Chapman, 78, is the last of the beatnik troubadours. The Yorkshireman has stayed fresh by developing his style, working with younger musicians, and writing poignant reflections on life passing. Aching pedal steel from BJ Cole adds to the mood, and Chapman’s fluid guitar playing remains a delight throughout. – The Times

4 stars. The cult 78-year old Nick Drake/John Martyn contemporary’s umpteenth album is typically great—wry observations of a life well-lived, laden with wit and insight. – The Guardian

Like the after-echo of every romantic and hopeless hope you ever felt and lost. [These songs] speak a deep truth about aging, and one that spikes several more humdrum cliches: age isn’t just how you feel, but an ineluctable fact; it isn’t just a matter of numbers, but very much a felt experience, and Chapman has delivered a beautiful continuum of musical experience since he emerged in 1969. He’s done nothing less than convert experience into song.  
– The Wire

8/10. More cold comfort from the folk-blues loner… the Hunslet Dylan. Michael Chapman has spent 50 years perfecting his voice-in-the-wilderness croak, the typically wind-blasted True North once more casting a rueful eye over time past and time passing. A glowering inferno. 
– Uncut

4 stars. The veteran guitarist and songwriter in top form… playing the role of dissolute troubadour. True North feels both stoic and positive in outlook.  
 – MOJO

7.4/10. At Chapman’s age, the impetus to look back necessitates a looming finality; in response, he oscillates between bouts of melancholy and tranquility. He gives himself over to memory’s full sway, until the project feels a little like thumbing through a souvenir album, Chapman singing about the postcards that help remind him of places held dear… a fitting platform for subtly psychedelic exploration and deep reflection.
– Pitchfork

4 stars. One of the last original folkies still standing. Chapman shows younger pretenders a clean pair of heels with impeccable guitar picking and tunes that veer from moist-eyed remembrance to defiance at time’s relentless passage … The fact that new is indistinguishable from old, and arguably better, is remarkable. 
 – Q Magazine

This is a work of clarity and passion… A world of lost love, burnt bridges, and melancholy… a gravelly, rhythmic marvel. 
  – Record Collector

8/10. …age isn’t so much a concept of True North as much as a blatant attribute; Chapman is no longer the young-gun folkie he made his name for in the early ’70s. He’s a weathered veteran of the written word and melodic guitar frameworks. True North isn’t so much his masterpiece as it is a quintessential journey into one of recorded music’s finest storytellers. 
 – Under The Radar

Chapman is as commanding as ever, his sharp wit intact and palpable. These are shadowy songs, but they’re driven by his grim humor, which has been shaped by his lifelong surroundings in the north of England… It’s a stripped down set, putting the focus on Chapman’s words and melodies. From the opening number, “It’s Too Late,” with its “wreckage on the highway” to the instrumental “Eleuthera,” these songs, while new to the Chapman catalog, sound fully inhabited, totally lived in. 
– Aquarium Drunkard

8.5/10. It’s uncommon for musicians to make their finest album… after more than half a century in circulation. Sparse, sombre and often sublime, True North does just that. The majestic creations that populate True North not only match but perhaps even surpass cult classics off, say, Rainmaker (1969) and Fully Qualified Survivor (1970). Deeply introspective and personal, these songs practically seep uneasy memories, lingering regrets, restless nights, and the inescapable sense of time slipping through your fingers, never to return. If there’s any justice at all, the future ahead after the release of this deeply moving, often mesmerising, sparse yet still richly nuanced album will see Chapman conclude his much-overdue journey to wider renown from the shadows he’s operated in for far too long. 
– The Line of Best Fit

Chapman’s tones are thick and elegant and provide his songs with a ringing, rich emotional heft. The splintered patina of the 78-year-old Chapman’s weathered voice makes already magnetic songs… even more irresistible. The Earth’s magnetic north may be moving at increasing speed, but once you’re honed in on ‘True North’ you won’t want to shift your attention anytime soon. 
– Associated Press