INFORMATION:
A music related concept by Richard Knox and Freédeéric D. Oberland.

450 km from the arctic circle, 'The Rustle of the Stars' is a phenomenon of austere beauty, a barely audible noise that occurs when the draught from human breath causes multiple collisions among the ice micro-crystals in the air.

Some words from Richard & Frederic:
We met on tour when performing in Europe with our respective bands Glissando and FareWell Poetry. We had beautiful times, drinking and talking our common grounds whilst some simple ideas formed in our minds: to compose an album together. To imagine a musical passage through the North Pole explorer diaries. To ask some people and some friends to participate. To record the project in a church. To act quickly.

We began to work at our homes in November 2010, In Paris (FR) and in Leeds (UK), with electric guitars, a bunch of pedals, piano, dulcimer, organ, crystal glasses, bows and field recordings, sending and adding ideas together to the tracks, trying to find a global organic sound.

We met in Leeds two months later at the beginning of 2011 to record in the St Margaret of Antioch Church, using a 'wall of sound' process in some of the tracks and arranging / recording the string parts you will hear in the music.

We would like to think of this album as a polar journey to the ends of the earth through the arctic sea. We kept in mind the first polar expeditions, Edgar Allan Poe's Dream-Land, the ships trapped or crushed by ice, the point of no-return, the minds sinking, the attempt on the Pole ending in disaster, the quest of the Northwest Passage, Erebus & Terror, the Mercy Bay, Mangazeya, Charles Francis Hall, Beechey Island, the Midnight sun and the Polar night. 

And to quote the poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge :

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken -
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !

RELEASE DATE:
NOVEMBER 7th 2011 

FORMATS:
LP / DL
*Limited Edition (300 hand numbered), with silver text 180g 12" HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL. Package includes artwork postcard, a screenprint and a digital download code*

TRACKLISTING:
1. Sleeping Land (pt I)
2. Mist
3. Drawing Lines to the End of the World
4. Le Passage du Nord-Ouest
5. Sea of Bones
6. A Divide
7. The Wreck of Hope
8. Sleeping Land (pt II)

CREDITS:
All tracks composed, recorded and mixed between Leeds (Cloud Blunt Moon, St. Margaret of Antioch Church) & Paris (Magnum Diva) by Richard Knox & Fréedeéric D. Oberland during the Winter 2010/2011. Recording assistance in St. Margaret of Antioch by Tim Hay.

Mastered by Lawrence English at 158.

Fréedeéric D. Oberland : piano, electric guitar, field recordings, harmonium, dulcimer, crystal glass, drones, slide, chimes, bowed glockenspiel, crackle, analog electronics

Richard Knox : electric guitar, drones, screwdriver, bowed cymbal, bowed glockenspiel, field recordings, companion organ

Angela Chan : viola, cello, choir

&; guests, per order of appearance
David Ramsay : violin
Elly May Irving : choir
Matt Clark : ghost narration
Tim Hay : stompbox
Jayne Amara Ross : Super8 projection sounds

ARTWORK:
Photography by Frederic D. Oberland
Layout / Design by Richard Knox & Frederic D. Oberland

LINKS:
The Rustle of the Stars website
The Rustle of the Stars facebook
Richard Knox website
Frederic D. Oberland website