Tip-top of Castle Face's osmosis list is the first quiver of tunes from
Brigid Dawson and her newly minted Mothers Network: wise
warnings dyed in dark hues, knotted and hard-won torch songs
from the edge of a turbulent sea, bittersweet balladry spun in defense
against evils familiar and unknown. Lovely though it may seem from
a distance, the striation of loss quicksilvered throughout provides
weighty balance to her contralto lilt. Those familiar with her harmonic
counterpoint from her time in Thee Oh Sees or in OCS know she
can belt as well as lullaby but there's a fresh and smolderingly heavy
swing in her step on display here that Castle Face mightily digs. Ballet
Of Apes tapestries together sessions that read like a who's who from
outside the label's castle walls-in Australia with Mikey Young
(Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring), in San Francisco
with Mike Donovan (ex-Sic Alps), Shayde Sartin (ex-Fresh &
Onlys / lifetime ringer) and Mike Shoun (ex-Oh Sees / Peacers), and
in Brooklyn with instrumental heavy-weights Sunwatchers-and the
results are spellbinding. At the focal point of this maelstrom, the lady,
as if illumed by candlelight, intones, pleads, consoles-white magic
perhaps, but it carries with it the anodized tang of blood.