Agrelia’s Castle
Elders and Ancestors is intended to provide solace to the listener. Paul and April Brown, who collaborate as Agrelia’s Castle, have created a beautiful, lasting legacy of their love. Paul, a Grammy Award–nominated producer and keyboardist, describes this new album as a journey of two artists together through the cancer landscape, with songs intended to create peace, joy, and hope. But at its heart, it’s really a love story.
The opening and title track, nearly 15 minutes long, immediately draws you all the way in. “Spirit Dreaming” features April’s Native American–style flute playing, and “Sonnet” showcases her soothing vocals. A painting of hers appears on the album cover. “Breathe” features Memphis sitar master Richard Cushing with Nashville guitar and cello master Tom Shinness. The album ends as it began with just Paul and April. Opening “Agrelia’s Lullaby” with the sound of the ocean and a spacious piano intro by Paul, April’s layered, wordless vocals create a heavenly choir that brings the album to a lofty conclusion.
Paul has been Grammy-evident this past year as well as touring the world with The Waterboys, who performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman” during its final month. So it took three years to complete this enchanting album imbued with strings, subtle percussion, and sounds of nature, all merged to create a magical soundscape.
This music is both ethereal and earthy, calming and uplifting, inviting the listener on a heartfilling journey into a healing space for release, relief, and relaxation. This offering to the world is Paul and April’s way to give back to all of the wonderful teachers they have met along their journey—many of whom are no longer with us—who have shown them how to live, under difficult circumstances, with beauty and grace.
MysteriumMusic.com
—LLOYD BARDE (LLOYDBARDE.COM)