Come Into Our House Album

West Coast psychedelic folkie Nick Castro is currently making some of most dynamic and truly original sounds to emerge from the much-ballyhooed new folk movement. As "freak-folk" and assorted hairy-fairy type labels grab the headlines in the underground, Castro strives for a solemn, serene sort of beauty, summoning utterly melodic incantations in song and sound. Gracefully immersing 60's/70's British Isles acid balladry with Middle-Eastern traditional music and heady, pan-cultural communal jams, Castro succeeds in reaching otherworldly vistas and ocean-spanning folk transcendence. Following up 2005's lauded Further From Grace, Castro unfurls his sprawling third album Come Into Our House, easily his most far-reaching and deeply molecular outing yet. Previously backed by The Poison Tree, which included Josephine Foster and of Espers, Nick Castro has assembled a new band of players under the moniker The Young Elders - a truly stellar cast of musicians whose combined resumes include folk and avant rock ensembles Current 93, In Gowan Ring, Damo Suzuki's Network and Cul de Sac. Castro has found a lineup in The Young Elders that fully articulates his vast and grandiose visions, and subsequently Come Into Our House shimmers brightly in sound and scope. An East-meets-West melting pot of instrumentation - from acoustic guitars, upright bass and piano to Celtic harp, Moroccan tabla and nyabinghi drum - Come Into Our House is at once primitive and polished, elaborate yet elusive, effortlessly mating Bert Jansch-style folk song ("Winding Tree"), psychedelic folk rock ("One I Love"), Middle Eastern traditional music ("Attar") and Bay Area acid-raga ("Lay Down Your Arms") to a kind of organic studio Musique Concrete that Can forged on albums like Tago Mago. The results are astonishing, challenging and utterly psychedelic. By reaching for the sky Castro achieves the heavens, and Come Into Our House is the evidence. A modern acid-folk masterwork.
-Strange Attractors