Cathedral (album)

Cathedral
Studio album by Castanets
Released October 19, 2004[1]
Genre Psychedelic folk
Length 33:26
Label Asthmatic Kitty
Castanets chronology
Cathedral
(2004)		 First Light's Freeze
(2005)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [2]
Pitchfork Media(8.5/10) [3]
PopmattersFavorable [4]

Cathedral is an album by Castanets, released on October 19, 2004 through Asthmatic Kitty.[1][5] Part of the album was recorded live and includes a dozen local musicians. Led by Raymond Raposa, this is the band's first foray into studio recording, which he described as 'a really protracted, uncomfortable process'.[6] The release features guest-vocals by Brigit DeCook and Liz Janes.[3] The material was partly recorded in a remote cabin in Northern California.[1] Raposa had planned to publish a novel to accompany the album, which failed to surface.[6]

Critical acclaim

Amanda Petrusich of Pitchfork.com compared Raposa's writing on Cathedral to that of the poet Seamus Heaney. She described the album as a collection of 'deep gothic ballads' of 'country music [that] should sound like death, and more specifically, death-by-murky-submersion'.[3] Heather Phares of allmusic.com referred to the religious overtones of the album, describing it as 'spiritual searching' and as having 'a certain dark theatricality'.[2] Justin Cober-Lake at popmatters.com described Cathedral as having 'lo-fi production [which] helps develop the darkness of Castanets’ music. [It] sounds as if it was recorded in the desert at night, which suits the pre-technology fears of the album'.[4] Jon Pit from Dusted Magazine called it 'another welcome installment in the folk renaissance' although he described Raposa's vocals as 'lacklustre'.[7]

Track listing

All tracks written by Raymond Raposa. 

No. Title Length
1. "Cathedral 2 (Your Feet On The Floor Sounding Like The Rain)"   3:13
2. "Just To Break Free From A Hundred Families"   0:34
3. "Industry And Snow"   1:44
4. "You Are The Blood"   4:09
5. "No Light To Be Found (Fare Thee Faith, The Path Is Yours)"   6:30
6. "Three Days, Four Nights"   4:51
7. "As You Do"   2:54
8. "Cathedral 3 (Make Us New)"   0:31
9. "The Smallest Bones"   2:47
10. "We Are The Wreckage"   3:56
11. "Cathedral 4 (The Unbreaking Branch And Song)"   2:23

Personnel

The album lists individuals as performers and cryptic descriptions of their parts,[5] these include:

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Cathedral, by Castanets". bandcamp.com. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
  2. 1 2 Phares, Heather. "Cathedral - Castanets". allmusic.com. All Media Inc. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
  3. 1 2 3 Petrusich, Amanda (August 31, 2004). "Castanets: Cathedral". pitchfork.com. Pitchfork Media Inc.
  4. 1 2 Cober-Lake, Justin (October 18, 2004). "Castanets: Cathedral". popmatters.com. Popmatters Media Inc.
  5. 1 2 Listing of the Castanets album Cathedral on Discogs.com, (accessed August 7, 2015).
  6. 1 2 Petrusich, Amanda (January 12, 2015). "Interview:Castanets". pitchfork.com. Pitchfork Media Inc.
  7. ↑ Pitt, Jon (October 15, 2004). "Dusted Reviews: Castanets - Cathedral". dustedmagazine.com. Dusted Magazine. Retrieved 2015-08-08.
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