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Castlemusic, You Can't Take Anyone. Here's a genuine sleeper. Low-key local singer/songwriter Jennifer Castle had me at the title (I really can't take anyone) and the label (Blue Fog), but I'll thank fellow music scribe Dave Morris's enthusiasm for pushing this entrancing, bent-folk find to the top of the stacks. Too quiet and just-this-side-of-familiar to properly announce itself upon delivery, You Can't Take Anyone – which can lazily, inaccurately and somewhat geekishly be described as what might result if Laika's Margaret Fiedler felt compelled to emulate the early Cat Power songbook in a mildly bluegrass mood – is one of those records that you'll let simmer in the background for awhile until the note-perfect moment when you half-accidentally zero in on how deep and peculiar it really is and begin listening with new ears. The distant, off-balance guitar twang that seeps into "Your Hand is a Wing" did it for me. Suddenly, there's so much more to decode. I'm ashamed I don't know more about Ms. Castle, but if she can run with the likes of F---ed Up and the Constantines while summoning such eccentric intimacy on her own time, she's got one hell of a range. - toronto star
FRI, JUL 7 / CASTLEMUSIC / SIDETRACK CAFE
When Toronto’s Jennifer Castle, performing under the name Castlemusic, stepped out onto the Sidetrack’s stage with just her electric guitar in hand, she was an unknown act on the night’s bill. Replacing the AWOL Will Kidman, Castle started the evening off slow and steady with a series of tunes that smoldered with emotion. Castle’s sparse, sometimes shaky guitar work provided the perfect complement to her ardent vocals as she built songs from whispers into raging storms, pounding out massive sounding chords and then pulling back just as quickly. The music was by no means easy to listen to, and that’s exactly what made it so powerful—Castle’s short set was as honest as music can get. –EDEN MUNRO / eden@vueweekly.com
- VueWeekly
DISC REVIEW now magazine
Castlemusic
Recorded over two Toronto seasons, Jennifer Castle’s debut captures both the bitter chill and searing heat of her hometown. Her soothsaying voice is heady like summertime, while the sparse, unaccompanied arrangements are as icy as February.
Likewise, songs move at glacial pace, with Castle’s delicate but determined warble the driving force and Ryan Driver and Doug Tielli’s harmonies carving out the texture. It’s during these boy-girl exchanges that Castle’s echoey ebb-and-flow acoustica feels most honed. “I’ve been putting up a fight” she intones on pretty duet Your Hand Is A Wing. For everyone else, resistance is futile.
- now magazine
BY DAVE MORRIS July 23, 2008 16:07
EDITORIAL RATING:
“I couldn’t catch a train if I tried… I can’t, I’m too scared to try,” Jennifer Castle, a.k.a. Castlemusic, sings on “Clouds in the Sky.” If she was afraid of recording this gem of an album, it hasn’t hurt the final product. Three songs into You Can’t Take Anyone, I had to check the liner notes again to see whether I had misread them. Surely one of these tracks had to be a cover. But no, Castle’s first solo album is fully her own, even though these stark, acoustic songs — the dusty, mournful “I Loved Him Now He’s Gone” or the ominous “Piece of Glass” — feel as old as the hills and built to last, like a sturdy, beloved table. Her voice and guitar are the engraving on its surface, delicate and slightly cracked, beautiful rather than merely cute, conjuring the quiet intensity of Mississippi John Hurt and inspiring her collaborators (Rat-Drifting associates Ryan Driver and Doug Tielli) to do the same. Whatever you do, this train is one not to be missed.
- eye weekly
Castlemusic
You Can’t Take Anyone
(Blue Fog/Sonic Unyon)
Sidestepping folk’s more strident manoeuvring, and the seductive sass of
rock ‘n’ roll balladry, Toronto’s Jennifer Castle ventures into such styles
with a delicate but commanding take on the terrain. Her vocals radiate grace
and intimacy, laying down lyrics that strike all the universal chords
without succumbing to cliché. Sparse electric and acoustic guitars,
supplemented by touches of piano and male back-up vocals by members of the
Silt, bring Castle’s compositions to fruition in all their quiet glory.
8/10
(Lorraine Carpenter)
- what's on winnipeg
You can’t take anyone
Castlemusic
Blue Fog Records
You can't take anyone, the highly anticipated new solo record by Toronto musician Jennifer Castle, is a healing balm for weary souls -- it’s hummable sadness with a sly underbelly of song-writing brilliance. This record compels the listener to pause, to lie down, to sway, to put that dish you are washing back down in the sink, to roll over, to hop a boxcar, to skip town and to hum.
Recorded in the spring and fall seasons of 2007 with Jeff McMurrich in Toronto, with the intention to make a record with attention to performance rather than perfection, You can’t take anyone allows the graceful tangles of Jennifer Castle’s songs to radiate without pretense.
Here Castle’s meandering, beautifully misshapen guitar lines meet with her thorny/poignant, womanly lyrics and utterly disarming voice. With a desire to write music that, “lets me really play the guitar and play guitar with no preciousness to structure and timing so I can really enjoy singing…the song becomes the bridge for both interests”, Castle’s addictive songs echo homespun greats like Johnny Cash and Elizabeth Cotton.
Of her song writing intentions and heartbreaking delivery, Castle says, “[I wish to] write with a dedication to imagination, poetry, meaninglessness, impossibility and honesty. Bad grammar and sloppy chord changes…to lyrically write in the often sad voice of a person who feels alone, while playing and singing like a person who reaps the uninhibited and beautiful benefits of this state”. And indeed, while many of these tunes are heartbreakers, there is intuitive headspace between the meaning of the words, the singer, the guitar and the audience that never allow the material to become maudlin.
While most of the songs on the record are performed solo, Castle is joined by Ryan Driver’s (The silt, The Reveries, Ryan Driver Quartet) austere piano, jangling guitar and unmistakable voice on a few tunes. Doug Tielli (The silt, No Man Band, The Reveries) contributes labyrinthine guitar and distinctive supporting vocals on two songs. These collaborative moments feel comfortable/natural and add complex dimensions to the arrangements of Castle’s adeptly honed songs.
You can’t take anyone moves from the understated drama of the opening song, “One, Two, Three”, through contemporary cow-poke terrain on “Roses”, to intense balladry on “Don’t Go Now” (and elegantly stuttering guitar throughout), with truly rare emotional integrity. This record marries viscera with song-writing deftness that gives musical and expressive honesty a new meaning. Listen to You can’t take anyone a thousand times and then a thousand times more.
- ADR
Discography
2006: Castlemusic: Live at the Music Gallery (independent)
2008: You Can't Take Anyone (Blue Fog)
Photos
Bio
Castlemusic is the songwriting effort of Toronto musician Jennifer Castle. Playing music for a decade in the city, the 2008 release of “You Can’t Take Anyone” (Blue Fog) has solidified Castlemusic as “one of Toronto’s true balladeers”. Performances in Toronto and across Canada have satisfied audiences and, via mostly word of mouth buzz, given Castlemusic the reputation of being a vivid performer, commanding hushed attention of rooms often filled with barroom chatter. Singing A Capella, demonstrating fearlessness on guitar and writing well built and poetic songs about love, in all its magic and struggle, Castle’s performance is a forceful and raw presence in the tradition of contemporary folk and blues music.
Emerging from the Toronto Scene in 2005 as a guitarist in psyche bands Fox The Boombox and Everybody Get Sick, Castle garnered critical attention for her ability to play quiet music and capture the imagination of listeners with her performance bravery. Self releasing Castlemusic: Live at the Music Gallery, Toronto critics John Sakamoto and Tim Perlich took notice of songs like “Sailor’s Blessing” and it ended up on year end best lists even though there was no announcement of its release in popular press.
Since then Castle has been a mainstay on the Toronto rock and avant scenes, comfortable to play to rock audiences and experimental audiences alike, adding vocals to seminal records like Fucked Up’s Year of the Pig anthem (Matador), and The Constantines “Kensington Heights” (Arts and Crafts), and whacked avant pop king Ryan Driver’s “The Feeler of Pure Joy (Rat Drifting). She has toured with Jon Rae and the River across western Canada and The Constantines throughout southern Ontario, she's played churches and theatres on the east coast opening for the likes of Rick White, Christine Fellows and Eric Chenauax. Ben Rayner of the Toronto Star says “too quiet and just-this-side-of-familiar to properly announce itself upon delivery, You Can't Take Anyone is one of those records that you'll let simmer in the background for awhile until the note-perfect moment when you half-accidentally zero in on how deep and peculiar it really is and begin listening with new ears.” He adds, “I'm ashamed I don't know more about Ms. Castle, but if she can run with the likes of F-cked Up and the Constantines while summoning such eccentric intimacy on her own time, she's got one hell of a range.”
In the summer of 2008 Castle quietly released “You Can’t take Anyone” on Blue Fog Records. Though known to shy from press, it received strong reviews, with attention given to songwriting skills that harken back to the old time approach of greats like Elizabeth Cotton and Johnny Cash. Dave Morris of Eye Magazine said, “Three songs into You Can’t Take Anyone, I had to check the liner notes again to see whether I had misread them. Surely one of these tracks had to be a cover. But no, Castle’s first solo album is fully her own, even though these stark, acoustic songs — the dusty, mournful “I Loved Him Now He’s Gone” or the ominous “Piece of Glass” — feel as old as the hills and built to last, like a sturdy, beloved table. Her voice and guitar are the engraving on its surface, delicate and slightly cracked, beautiful rather than merely cute, conjuring the quiet intensity of Mississippi John Hurt”.
While aiming to tour her record across Canada and Europe, Castle also plays guitar in Toronto rock band Deloro, with members of the Constantines and $100. Exclaim Magazine says, “she’s something of an “it girl” on the local indie scene now…such clique-ish buzz is oft undeserved but not in Castle’s case, judging by this lovely solo record.” Castle hopes to bring her music to more audiences during 2009.
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