Jason Collett has worn many hats over a story-filled career now spanning twenty years. He sprang from the close-knit movement-defining Toronto collective Broken Social Scene, earning success in his own right as an indie rock troubadour with a warm and poetic tone. Now, Jason Collett’s career-spanning Best Of album will be released March 19 on his lifelong label Arts & Crafts. The thirteen song collection crystalizes moments from an ever-changing era, fusing vital threads that connect us to our musical family.
Best Of is spearheaded by the singer-songwriter’s first new recording since 2016’s Song And Dance Man. “Crab Walking Home In The Rain” was arranged and produced by beloved indie folk artist Andy Shauf, marking his first production for another artist. Shauf’s signature touch – chiming guitars, sprinkled with piano, interjections from the clarinet section – lift Collett’s lyrical slights-of-hand in a seamless stroke of inverted melancholy. “Crab Walking” is less a lament for times disappeared than it is a unifying call for the present. “Old haunts and landmarks that once were and are no longer. Conjuring good memories of good times,” Collett reminds.
Andy Shauf shares, “I’ve been a fan of Jason Collett for a long time so when he asked me to work on a song of his, I was really excited. I’ve never really felt that I had the right personality to be a producer – guiding the session and making people feel at ease – so when Jason explained that his idea was for me to produce the instrumental on my own for him to sing on, I was even more excited. Recording and arranging are definitely my favourite parts of the process, so to get to do just that to an already great song was awesome. I’ve always seen Jason as a bit of a crooner for some reason, so I tried to take the song a bit further in that direction.”
Jason Collett appears every few years with a new songbook of sharp-witted musical commentary, each with a unique sonic tint. His music continues the tradition of everlasting artists like Nick Lowe, Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson, and Tom Petty, a treasured scribe of our place and our time. A member of the Arts & Crafts label from start to present, Jason Collett’s Best Of is a document of a true artist, endemic to our creative community.
