The Queen Of Hearts

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release, The Queen of Hearts is the debut album from Offa Rex, an adventurous project featuring English singer/multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine (Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case) and Colin Meloy at Martine's studio in Portland, OR, the album draws largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining it's own inimitable identity. In announcing the new endeavor, Meloy praised Chaney's talent: "We invited her to open a bunch of Decemberists shows in 2015 and afterward I made a pitch to her: let us be the Albion Dance Band to your Shirley Collins," he says, for those among you that get the reference. "Let's start a band. Let's make a record of old folk songs that will be as much about rediscovering ancient songs as it is an homage to that incredible era of British music, the '60s and '70s folk revival."