Prolific Composer GAVIN CASTLETON Unveils A "POPERA"
 

Gavin Castleton is set to release the digital version of his epic production, HOME: on Friday the 13th of February on Five One Records. The physical version will be available in April. HOME carries you on a focused journey of love (and the footprint it leaves when it steps on your face) through the eyes of a man, a woman, two ladybugs, and an army of corpses. Not only is the concept left-of-center, the album itself is unique in its function. Freshly arisen from the devastation of a six-year relationship, Castleton set out to design an album that would both document his healing process and deliver comfort to listeners to the heartbroken. In what close friends described as "a monumental error in judgment," Castleton enlisted the help of his departing lover to help write the story. The process became so heart-wrenching that Castleton abandoned the house they had shared, and for five months (until his final mastering date) he and his faithful dog slept on couches, floors, and car seats, recording musicians all over New England. The result is HOME, a 14-song narrative that follows his relationship from the coffee-shop flirtation beginning to the mauled-by-zombies-while-his-girlfriend-leaves-in-a-helicopter-with-some-army-dude end.

“For the last few years I've been approaching my songs as parts of a bigger composition. While the rest of the world is taking things in smaller and smaller doses, I find myself making bigger and bigger pieces. I don't know if I'm responding to the shrinking average attention span, or running from it,” says Castleton.

Home is a new soundscape of paramount proportions, even for Castleton, who has built his 14-year career on innovation (his last album was a prog-hiphop narrative recounting his life backwards, from his suicide in 2054 to present day). Song by song the line between documentary and fantasy becomes blurred, as you find yourself careening through a dynamic plot that unfolds like a classic horror movie. The album is sequenced in two halves: the first depicts Castleton and his young lover falling deeply in love, and the second, in which said lovers are stalked incessantly by a growing population of flesh-eating zombies, is the story of falling out of love.

What does love sound like to Castleton? Tracks like “Coffeelocks” and “Warpaint” suggest Philip Glass, Brian Wilson, Postal Service, and Pink Floyd. When flirtation gives way to passion, songs like “Sugar on the Sheets” and “Stampete” summon the sounds of D’Angelo, Prince, and Portishead as Castleton is joined by the versatile voice of Lauren Coleman.

But when “The Onslaught” begins, relationship decay is positively palpable with Castleton flipping the soundtrack into something from the Goblin/King Crimson school of prog. Holed up in an abandoned grocery store surrounded by zombies, the relationship begins to devour itself. The apocalyptic shades of Massive Attack, Brian Eno, and Godspeed You Black Emporer tint tracks like “The Wall Starts to Give” and “Unparallel Rabbits.” Locked in a storage closet with his lover safe in the arms of an “army dude,” Castleton delivers an oscar-worthy performance in his suicide march, “Oregon.” To fully appreciate why he is then miraculously resurrected by a pair of singing ladybugs(!), you would want to take a look at his blog (The Great Consolidation), where Castleton has been weaving additional narratives around and through the album (and his other recent works) since he began the production two years ago. The tiny spirit guides beg him to try a happier ending for the album, and he does, in the lush and linear next-to-last track, “The Human Torch.”

But things are never so picture perfect warns Castleton in the final song “Credits,”in which his patented self-awareness is transcended even further, breaking the fourth wall a la Charlie Kaufman and referring to the album itself, “Is this me holding on or letting go?”

Despite the unconventionally wide scope of Home, Castleton insists it is a very accurate depiction of a rough breakup: “When you fall in love, is it not a little bit like a musical? When your heart breaks, is it not a little bit like a horror movie?”

Gavin Castleton began making music at the age of three as a classically trained pianist. At fourteen he began studying jazz with David Azarian. Shortly thereafter he and some friends formed "futurock" band Gruvis Malt, and from 1995 to 2004 they toured the US and released nine recordings (one with Warner subsidiary Lakeshore Records, and the other eight independently). When Gruvis Malt stopped touring in 2004, Gavin launched a solo career, releasing four full-length records and three EPs while touring the country to promote them. He has produced a handful of records by other artists, made numerous guest appearances on records both foreign and domestic (he recently debuted in the UK with his collaboration with IK7 recording artist Stateless, the 7" inch “Window 23/Great White Whale”), and tinkered with various remixes (most recently, Myspace recording artist Meiko and Eenie Meenie’s Wallpaper). He was awarded Best Electronica/DJ Act three years in a row in Providence, RI, where he lived until this year when he moved to Portland, OR.

The Complete Track Listing For HOME Is:

1. Bugguts
2. Coffeelocks
3. Warpaint
4. Sugar on the Sheets
5. Stampete
6. The Onslaught
7. The Wall Starts to Give
8. Layers
9. Unparallel Rabbits
10. Red + Blue = Yella
11. Oregon
12. Beetlemeet
13. The Human Torch
14. Credits