MISTER NOBU (CHOIR! CHOIR! CHOIR!) SHARES “DEEP IN A DREAM”
ARTS & CRAFTS
Mister Nobu is the solo project of Nobu Adilman, co-founder/director of Toronto’s Choir! Choir! Choir!. Today, he shares a pop version of “Deep In A Dream”, the 1938 slow jam made famous by Chet Baker and Frank Sinatra, included on his upcoming album, TAVIE, out March 27 via Arts & Crafts. “Chet’s cover of ‘Deep In A Dream’ popped up on my feed on a day I didn’t have anything going on,” says Adilman. “I loved it and realized, as I spent the whole day learning and arranging it, that the lyrics spoke to the themes of love and loss that are all over TAVIE – the perfect addition and the sole cover on the record.
The narrator sits, all alone, smoking the night away in silence, as she, or he, reminisces a past love. The power of the memories fill the dark, lonely space, and, for a moment, we get to be at the centre of such happiness and comfort. Until it ends.”
“Deep In A Dream” was written in 1938 by Jimmy Van Heusen and Eddie De Lange and became a celebrated jazz standard. There’s no better time than to share Mister Nobu’s cover of the classic track than Feb 13th, the day before we’re supposed to all fall in love! And, “it’s also my birthday,” says Adilman. “So it’s also a good time to do some deep forensics on my failed relationships!!!”
The twelve songs on TAVIE indelibly mark the emotional highs and lows of a perfect relationship running out of time. The range is unapologetically diverse but slides comfortably under Indie Pop, celebrating melody, harmony, and unironic emotionality. There are ballads and there are dancers.
The album is “mostly about connection,” says Adilman. “From my TV work to music stuff, I generally like to explore human interaction by throwing everyone into weird and collaborative creative environments. Music has a beautiful way of pulling people’s guards down, and cutting through lots of emotional red tape quickly. Music helps me process my emotions, my life, and, if I can get it down in a song, then I feel more resolved.”
Some have said they hear traces of Lennon, others McCartney, perhaps some Dennis Wilson, maybe some Judee Sill and Sibylle Baier, but here’s hoping for .01% of Frank Ocean.
TAVIE was produced by Rob Benvie (Thrush Hermit/Bankruptcy), and mixed by Byron Kent Wong, mastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel Mastering. Mister Nobu is joined by many friends including Benvie, Mike Belitsky (The Sadies), Matt Murphy (The Super Friendz/Flashing Lights/TUNS), Moshe Fisher Rozenberg (Absolutely Free), members of Choir! Choir! Choir!, and Danielle Duval, with string arrangements by Chris A. Cummings (Marker Starling) + Benvie.
Nobu Adilman is one of the two founding members of Choir! Choir! Choir!, the international phenomenon that has collaborated with David Byrne, Patti Smith (twice!), Stewart Copeland, Rufus Wainwright, Brandi Carlile, and more. They’ve wracked up millions of views on YouTube, sung for Lionel Richie on American Idol, been the subject of a half-hour PBS All Arts special for their 2019 performance at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and performed at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall. Even Rick Astley dropped by their Toronto weekly to RickRoll a sold-out crowd! And, most recently, held a gig at the border between Mexico and the US, with Nobu leading a group of singers from a stage in Tijuana, and his partner, on the other side of the wall, in San Diego.
Never one to sit idle, Nobu’s documentary film SHORT ROUND UP premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival earlier this summer. The film follows Nobu’s search for the Asian men who, like him, auditioned to be “Short Round” in Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom, their first shot at becoming Hollywood Stars. Nobu has also appeared as a series regular in the cult-hit TV show and films Trailer Park Boys, co-created and starred in forty episodes of the gonzo cooking/gadget creation show Food Jammers seen on the Food Network and Cooking Channel, and travelled in the US in a short-bus powered by vegetable oil meeting innovators of green science for Invention Nation on Discovery Science USA.
Nobu started out as a writer on Canadian episodic television (Emily of New Moon, Cold Squad), and then co-hosted, with his brother, a couple of national Canadian TV shows (Smart Ask!, ZeD), and acted as a pop culture reporter (>Play). In the late 90s he co-founded and played in the Halifax rock band Rick Of The Skins (ROTS), and in the early 2000s he released his first solo album as Mister Nobu titled C’mon Wid Your C’mon.
Due out March 27 via Arts & Crafts, TAVIE is available to pre-order today on vinyl and digital download.
Mister Nobu
Tavie
(Arts & Crafts)
Release Date: March 27, 2020
Pre-Order Tavie HERE
Artist Links
Main Photo Credit: Matthew David
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