Gord Downie (Tragically Hip) & Bob Rock Share New Single

Arts & Crafts is proud to announce today's premiere of "The Moment Is A Wild Place," the latest single from the long-fabled collaboration between Gord Downie, late frontman of legendary Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, and GRAMMY® Award-winning producer/musician Bob Rock.

The epic ballad heralds the upcoming release of Lustre Parfait, the ninth album to bear Downie's name outside of The Tragically Hip, and the first to bear Rock's.

Arriving on Friday, May 5, 2LP, CD, and digital formats are available for pre-order now. The Moment Is A Wild Place EP - featuring the seven-and-a-half minute title track along with five additional album cuts - is available now at all DSPs and streaming services. An official visualizer is streaming now on YouTube.

"I've always been a fan of long pieces of music," says Bob Rock. "Setting a mood and going someplace, just taking you somewhere. The music was based on that journey, this rising tide of chords, crescendos in the chorus. Somehow, I stumbled on this magic chord, a simple minor to a major progression, and it moved me. And Gord reacted to it.

It's absolute perfection in terms of songwriting and in terms of what he did. It's special because of what he talks about. The lyric was written before he was diagnosed with the sickness that he had. They say you gotta live in the moment. It causes you to look back, and I get choked up every time I hear it, still. I think most people will be moved by it. It's one of his finest moments."

More than a decade in the making, Lustre Parfait sees Downie's peerless lyricism and incendiary heart given newfangled energy by his longtime friend and collaborator, famed producer/musician Bob Rock.

Their partnership began in 2006 when Rock - known for his award-winning work with Metallica, Mötley Crüe, and Michael Bublé, to name but a few - produced The Tragically Hip's acclaimed 10th studio album, World Container, followed in 2009 by the chart-topping We Are The Same. It was after the second outing that Downie asked if Rock might have music he could write to, stirring both towards new points of expression and experimentalism.

The sonic spaces that Rock would provide led Downie into the depths of his notebooks, resulting in Lustre Parfait, an unexpected gift from one of Canada's most cherished voices, a relentless 14-track collection charged by the unifying forces of poetry and power.

With words by Downie and music by Rock - who also contributes guitars, keyboards, and percussion - Lustre Parfait is unabashedly inspiring and infectious, the gleaming sound of a vivid and vital rock band belting out transcendent new music unlike anything previously heard in the late frontman's celebrated canon.

Rock rouses indelible performances from Downie, his vibrant musical imagination and deft production touch igniting songs like the rallying cry of "The Raven And The Red-Tailed Hawk," the reverberant "Is There Nowhere," and the spiritually charged "Lustre Parfait" with brash electric melodies and brassy rock n' roll grandeur.

"First and foremost Gord was my friend," continues Rock, "and having the opportunity to work with him on these songs was one of the biggest highlights of my professional life. I am grateful that I got to witness his genius in such close proximity."

Gord Downie is the late lead singer and songwriter of The Tragically Hip, who, over more than 30 years and across fourteen studio albums, built an enduring legacy as perhaps the essential Canadian rock band. With seven solo albums to his name, Downie's own music refutes definition, renowned for its adventurous poetry, collaboration, elastic composition, and singular vocal wail.

In 2016, Downie presented Secret Path, a multimedia project helping to bring crucial awareness to Indigenous reconciliation in Canada. The Tragically Hip performed their final national tour earlier that summer, leaving an indelible mark on the more than twelve million fans that watched the historic farewell concert, televised from the band's hometown of Kingston, Ontario.

Downie passed away on October 17, 2017. In memoriam, The New York Times stated that Downie has "no parallel in the United States. Imagine Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Michael Stipe combined into one sensitive, oblique, poet-philosopher, and you're getting close."

Robert Jens Rock, record producer, engineer, guitarist, and songwriter first found success as a core member of the Vancouver, BC punk/new wave/pop band Payola$ before going on to produce and engineer top-selling albums by such timeless artists as Metallica, Bon Jovi, The Tragically Hip, The Cult, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Cher, Loverboy, Bryan Adams, Simple Plan, Michael Bublé and many others.

Known for his robust, radio-friendly production touch and the intuition to play to an artist's character and strengths, Rock is perhaps best known for his long-standing role as producer for Metallica, helming six consecutive albums beginning in 1991 with the self-titled Metallica (also known as "The Black Album"), the iconic band's worldwide popular breakthrough and still one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Rock has earned a long series of honors and accolades throughout his multiplatinum career, including a GRAMMY® Award, multiple JUNO Awards, and induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Watch the visualizer here:

Photo Credit: Gordon Hawkins / Austin Nelson

To post a comment, you must register and login.