For nearly a quarter century, Joan of Arc maintained a fluid lineup that drew from a multitude of subversive Chicago music communities. The group’s obdurate dedication to shape-shifting reinvention charmed and frustrated audiences in equal measure, often simultaneously. What they produced resists all attempts at easy summary.

Only one person, band-leader Tim Kinsella, remained in Joan of Arc from its 1996 debut to its final days in 2020, however every musician and behind-the-scenes collaborator that played a role in Joan of Arc (a number that exceeds 100) influenced the band’s direction and character. Joan of Arc is the result of Tim's work with a community of radical artists who came to him from the underground, or were found there after he sought them out to engage in strange and memorable experiments in sound. No two Joan of Arc albums sound identical, but listening closely to this work we begin to trace out the footprint of ideas that took root on one LP and blossomed into the next.

With A Window & A Mirror, we tell part of the story and resurrect the early phase of the group’s evolution. Excavated from Kinsella’s grandmother’s basement, the 132-page hardbound book collects his journals, photos, and essays written in real time as these albums came together, and includes a long lost Joan of Arc artifact: Red Blue Yellow, a rare recording captured at a notorious show where Kinsella and his co-conspirators would convene for a one-time performance under the name Red Blue Yellow, following the demise of Kinsella’s pioneering emo band Cap’n’Jazz. Red Blue Yellow promptly broke up and became Joan of Arc. Red Blue Yellow is the missing link between Cap’n’Jazz and Joan of Arc and is only now seeing the light of day. Also included in this collection is access to the “Joan of Archive,” a digital collection of literally hundreds of demo-tapes, live recordings, and musical meanderings mapping the band’s evolution. The group meticulously cataloged their development during this period, and purchasers of A Window & A Mirror will now be granted access to the motherlode.

"I have no neat and tidy way to summarize Joan of Arc. The group’s obdurate dedication to shape-shifting reinvention charmed and frustrated in equal measure, and often simultaneously. Any conversation of who or what Joan of Arc is must also consider what the band is not—beyond a unit that avoided convention. Only one person, bandleader Tim Kinsella, remained in Joan of Arc from its 1996 debut to its final days in 2020. For nearly a quarter century, Joan of Arc maintained a fluid lineup that drew from a multitude of subversive Chicago music communities. Every musician and behind-the-scenes collaborator that played a role in Joan of Arc (a number that exceeds 100) influenced the band’s direction and character. All the while, Tim helped maintain Joan of Arc’s singular identity throughout all the shifts. No two Joan of Arc albums sound identical, but if you listen close enough, you trace ideas that took root on one LP and blossomed in the next. This book expands and deepens the story of Joan of Arc’s first five albums (its Jade Tree period) with archival photos and pages ripped from Tim’s journals, presented alongside Tim’s recollections and a compact early history. This book comes with a live recording of the one and only show by Red Blue Yellow—the band Tim started just before Joan of Arc—presented here on a 7", along with download code for a couple hundred bonus tracks from the group’s archives." —Leor Galil, July 2023