Castle, Jennifer: Camelot LP

"Camelot", Jennifer Castle's extraordinary, moving chronicle of the artist in early middle age, charts a realer place than the legendary Camelot of the British Early Middle Ages, but it too is a space more psychic than physical. In Castle's "Camelot", the fantastic interpenetrates the mundane, and the Grail, if there is one, distills everyday experience into art and art into faith, subliming terrestrial concerns into sublime celestial prayers to Mother Nature, and to the unfolding process of perfecting imperfection in one's own nature. "Castle's songs are vibrant and bountiful landscapes, and even in their quietest, darkest moments, they thrum and glow. [She] has a stunning capacity for crafting lines rich with nuance, humor and devastating beauty" - CBC.