Reconstruction Site

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reconstruction Site
Studio album by The Weakerthans
Released	September 26, 2003
Recorded	January – March 2003 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genre	Folk, punk
Length	40:46
Label	Epitaph
Producer	Ian Blurton
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Sun Media (favorable) link
The Weakerthans chronology
Watermark EP (2001) Reconstruction Site (2003) Reunion Tour (2007)

Reconstruction Site is a 2003 album by The Weakerthans. A song cycle about grief, regret and loss, the album is thematically framed by three tracks, "(Manifest)", "(Hospital Vespers)" and "(Past-Due)", which set three different sonnets about a terminally ill hospital patient to the same melody.

Other songs examine the album's themes from different angles: "Plea from a Cat Named Virtute"^[1] is written from the perspective of a depressed person's cat, "One Great City!" is about Samson's love-hate relationship with his hometown of Winnipeg, and "Our Retired Explorer" imagines a dinner date between Michel Foucault and a hopelessly nostalgic member of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica.

Guest musicians on the album include Sarah Harmer and Christine Fellows. The album's cover art was designed by Canadian artist and fellow Winnipegger Marcel Dzama.

[edit] Track listing

All songs by The Weakerthans and all lyrics by John K. Samson.

1. "(Manifest)" – 1:45
2. "The Reasons" – 2:50
3. "Reconstruction Site" – 2:45
4. "Psalm for the Elks Lodge Last Call" – 2:45
5. "Plea from a Cat Named Virtute"^[1] – 3:49
6. "Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)" – 2:23
7. "Time's Arrow" – 2:53
8. "(Hospital Vespers)" – 1:41
9. "Uncorrected Proofs" – 2:42
10. "A New Name for Everything" – 4:04
11. "One Great City!" – 2:55
12. "Benediction" – 3:28
13. "The Prescience of Dawn" – 4:37
14. "(Past-Due)" – 2:10

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Some sources give the title as "Virtue" rather than "Virtute". The title is correctly spelled "Virtute" and pronounced "Vir-too-tay".

v • d • e The Weakerthans Members John K. Samson • Jason Tait • Stephen Carroll • Greg Smith • Former member: John P. Sutton Discography Fallow (1997) • Left and Leaving (2000) • Watermark EP (2001) • Reconstruction Site (2003) • Reunion Tour (2007)