Cathedral (Castanets album)

Last updated
Cathedral
Cathedral (Castanets album) cover art.jpg
Studio album by
Castanets
ReleasedOctober 19, 2004 [1]
Genre Psychedelic folk
Length33:26
Label Asthmatic Kitty
Castanets chronology
Cathedral
(2004)		 First Light's Freeze
(2005)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Pitchfork Media (8.5/10) [3]
Popmatters Favorable [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]

Contents

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] In December 2004, American webzine Somewhere Cold ranked Cathedral No. 8 on their 2004 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame list. [8]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Raymond Raposa.

No.TitleLength
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:

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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.
  8. ↑ Lamoreaux, Jason T. (December 1, 2004). "Somewhere Cold Awards 2004". Somewhere Cold . Archived from the original on September 30, 2020. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
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