At the wintry tail of 2010, Toronto’s spook-folk minstrel Jennifer Castle teamed with the ever-enigmatic Wyrd Visions for a stunningly beautiful
12” split. Four months later, Calgary-based boutique label
Flemish Eye gives us the follow-up, an expanded excursion through the wardrobe and into Castle’s enchanted kingdom. Accentuating pillow-soft vocals and delicate finger-plucks with flourishes of pedal steel, organ, medieval flute and signature fusion instrument ‘the guitlele.’ Castlemusic casts a spell you won’t want to counter. In line with the site’s physicality m.o., Weird Canada asked Castle to take part in the inaugural edition of our latest feature ‘Ephemera’, assembling a shrine of totemic objects that played a part in the album’s creation.
Feel free to listen to these two tracks from the album while you peruse the images below (which you can click for larger versions). The accompanied text was provided by Jennifer Castle. We’re very grateful to Jennifer, David Clarke, Ian Russell (Flemish Eye), and Landon Speers (photos) for this very special feature.
Jesse Locke
Weird Canada // Texture Magazine
weirdcanada.com // texturemagazine.ca/wordpress
- (click to enlarge)
- Shrine
![[Photo Scan] :: Jennifer Castle's Shrine (Cred. Landon Speers)](http://weirdcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/shrine_1-300x232.jpg "[Photo Scan] :: Jennifer Castle's Shrine (Cred. Landon Speers)")
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This is a shrine dedicated to the experience of making and releasing Castlemusic. It’s built on the piano I was given for my birthday two years ago and began writing on for the first time. “Way of the Crow” was one of the first songs I wrote on it.
- Conch + Photo
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This conch came from a small beach in Jamaica, just west of Kingston towards Black River, that I brought home for luck this winter. It’s a place with a rough and protective ocean, a hot and exhausting desert and a lush and inviting jungle all within a few minutes of each other. It has the best food in the world, positive vibes and uplifting friendliness. The ink portrait is of an old friend — a Jamaican immigrant himself — my late dad, Peter L. Castle. R.I.P.
- Sage
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This sage was bought from a man on commercial drive a year and a half ago while waiting for my sound check on a tour I did with Chad VanGaalen. It’s on top of my Harvard Reverb amp, which has the loudest buzz and is inappropriate to record with, even though I do.
- 1969 Harmony Rocket + Castlemusic Art
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This 1969 Harmony Rocket guitar is well loved despite being almost nothing but problems. Then there’s the Castlemusic record itself, the cover of which is a photo of the arresting painting, DRAWBACK, by artist Mira Dancy . It’s an image so deep that no matter how much I think I know it I look again and realize I know nothing about it.
- 1969 Harmony Rocket + Castlemusic Art
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This is my Yamaha guitlele that I tour with sometimes because it’s so light. It sounds awesome with a contact mic and a haze of distortion. I used it to record the song “Neverride.” Most think it’s a ukulele, but it has enough bass to keeps it grounded sounding.
- Kom Jung BBQ Pork
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This dish comes from Kom Jug, the BBQ pork joint across the street from 6Nassau where we recorded the record. It’s the food Dave Clarke lived on ($4 for a HUGE order) but that our engineer Jeff McMurrich wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
- Magic Combo
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For this magic combo, there are no words.
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![[Photo Scan] :: Jennifer Castle's Shrine (Cred. Landon Speers)](http://weirdcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/shrine_1.jpg "[Photo Scan] :: Jennifer Castle's Shrine (Cred. Landon Speers)")
