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Castaways & Cutouts

The DecemberistsAudio CD
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)


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MP3 Music, 10 Songs, 2009 $5.99  
Audio CD, Original recording reissued, 2003 $14.35  
Audio CD, 2002 --  
Vinyl, 2005 $19.74  

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Life as a musician means continual evolution. Over the course of a career, any band worth paying attention to will pursue a sound, a direction, until it triggers a different idea and they’re chasing some other distant dream. With their sixth album, The King Is Dead, The Decemberists illustrate the power that comes from this kind of creative call-and-response.

When the band ... Read more in Amazon's The Decemberists Store

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Frequently Bought Together

Castaways & Cutouts + Picaresque + The Crane Wife
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Product Details

  • Audio CD (May 21, 2002)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Hush Records
  • ASIN: B000065C63
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,002,316 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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1. Leslie Anne Levine
2. Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
3. July, July!
4. A Cautionary Song
5. Odalisque
6. Cocoon
7. Grace Cathedral Hill
8. The Legionnaire's Lament
9. Clementine
10. California One
11. Youth And Beauty Brigade

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 61 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars stunning June 2, 2004
Format:Audio CD
have you ever heard a beautiful old celtic song, where upon listening closely to the lyrics you discover it's about how a bride is killed on her wedding day and her ghost avenges her death... and you think "that's a weird thing to write a song about..."

Well, this disc is a lot like that.
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60 of 65 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Raised on pradies, peanut shells and dirt March 31, 2004
Format:Audio CD
Last years opening salvo from The Decemberists was Castaways and Cutouts. Crafting beautiful songs rich with story, they have quickly become a pinnacle on the scene (followed by another full length release the same year, and already an EP this year, they may also quickly become one of the most prolific if they are not careful). Colin Meloy and his Decemberists hail from Portland OR, and are oft compared to Neutral Milk Hotel. I'm going to get one thing clear and out of the way right off the bat if you don't mind. One, yes, they do sound akin to Neutral Milk Hotel. And two, I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not that fond of Jeff Magnum's voice. Though I can hear the resemblance, I like Colin's voice much, much better. Another reviewer implied that this was a less daring album than Neutral Milk's outings, and I concede that might be a fair assessment. But while the blueprint might not be pushing the envelope quite as far as they did, that does not keep this group from putting together a musical monument through perfect, beautiful execution and well measured emotion.
Overall, this album is dotted with beautiful musical interaction by so many instruments and graced with detailed lyrical imagery. In my mind I can picture them as the last of the wandering minstrels, recanting the ghostly mid nineteenth century tale of young death on "Leslie Ann Levine", featuring what I can only identify as some sort of well played squeeze box ("Fifteen years gone now, I still wander this parapet and shake my rattle bone / Fifteen years gone now, I still cling to the petticoats of the girl who died with me").
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:MP3 Music
I will try to keep this short, as you have surely read by now that The Decemberists' debut album Castaways and Cutouts is inhabited by ghosts, prostitutes, nefarious seamen, and various other rogues. You probably also know that the songs evoke a time virtually untouched by modern civilization.

About half of the songs on the album are at least pretty good. These include the only two up-tempo numbers on the album, "July, July!" and "The Legionnaire's Lament". The strong mid-tempo songs include "Leslie Anne Levine", narrated by the ghost of a stillborn baby, "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect", and "A Cautionary Song", which is about mother who must sell her body to randy sailors in order to feed her children. "Odalisque" mixes up the tempos, and will require the first - if not second or third - reference to a dictionary for most listeners. The prominent arpeggios toward the end are reminiscent of "Because" by The Beatles. With these five songs going for it, the first half of the album is uniformly strong.

Alas, several songs on the second half of the CD are a bit, well, boring. "Cocoon" slows the tempo significantly, to the detriment of the song and the album. It is quite difficult to remain interested in it over the course of its seven minutes. "Grace Cathedral Hill" is a better song, but does little to add any momentum. The aforementioned "The Legionnaire's Lament" rescues the listener from the onset of ennui, but "Clementine" - a sweet and sincere song worth listening to at least once - threatens to set it right back in.

Fortunately, Castaways and Cutouts closes on a upbeat note, albeit a very long one. "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" is the first epic of the group's career.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting May 23, 2003
Format:Audio CD
"Castaways and Cutouts" is as fully-realized a debut as I've ever heard. Everything about this band--from its name and homespun artwork to Colin Meloy's beautiful and beguiling songs--feels right. Meloy's vivid lyrics spin intimate tales of unrestful spectres, reluctant prostitutes, and lonely soldiers with an effortlessness that belies their complexity and completeness. His highly literate and captivating wordplay is backed by a woozy folk/pop hybrid that perfectly matches the lyrics in tone and impact. Acoustic guitar tracks are augmented by Hammond organ, accordion, and tasteful pedal steel. Though familiar, when coupled with the lyrics, the sound is somehow fresh. This probably owes to Meloy's unique phrasing (he's from Montana, but sings with an appealing mid-Atlantic lilt), lovely melodies, and self-assured, troubador's vocals. Everything fits together perfectly. This is a special record.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Sharing the Blessing July 16, 2006
Format:Audio CD
There are some bands that one is happy to hear the first time, and there are others that make one feel blessed. Listening to this Decembrists' CD, I reveled in my good fortune; what a wonderful world we live in that can yield music this good.

The Decembrists' "sound" is very distinctive-- organs and accordions feature prominently, while singer/songwriter Colin Meloy's voice is slightly reminiscent of Robyn Hitchcock. Like Hitchcock, Meloy has a uniquely personal writing style, but where Hitchcock is deliriously surreal, Meloy's writing is structured around storytelling. Simply reading through the lyrics (which can be enjoyed in and of themselves), these tales of life's, er, castaways in various exotic time and place settings entertains. Listening to them, of course, is even better.

Throughout, the Decembrists walk a remarkable tightrope. Their music is quirky without being obtuse, literate without being pretentious, catchy with being cloying... I've been listening to a lot of good music this year, and CASTAWAYS might be the highlight. And the fact that they're from Portland is just icing on the cake. Hey, there's a song here called "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect"! You know, I wrote a guidebook to Portland architecture... and you really don't care. :)

Listen to this CD.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
super cool-dark oregon electro folk. buy them all.
Published 2 months ago by Mmo
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Love it!
Published 3 months ago by Josh Worth
5.0 out of 5 stars <3
This is one of the best Decemberists albums out there! I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Buy. Listen. Love.
Published 7 months ago by hoboheartsnort
5.0 out of 5 stars Love love love!!
This is one of the decemberists better albums in my opinion, but then I'm an avid fan. I enjoy this better than their newer stuff
Published 10 months ago by Nomes
4.0 out of 5 stars If your a Decemberists fan this album is a must.
Great album, consistently good music from this great band. If you've only heard one or two of their songs and are looking for a good album to get into the artists highly... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Heather
5.0 out of 5 stars Love it
I have all the songs memorized, what else can I say? I love the way the songs tell stories, like little glimpses into a quirky, sometimes disturbing world.
Published 20 months ago by Eleni Sakellis
5.0 out of 5 stars Brillant Piece of Music
As a huge Decemberists fan, I have come to know and love how they use their music and Colin Meloy's lyrics to tell stories in ways that not many other artists do. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Eric
5.0 out of 5 stars Mellow and beautiful
A beautifully unhurried album with, as is typical for these guys, most of the songs about dead people or ghosts (that's a good thing). Read more
Published on September 28, 2012 by The Shrike
5.0 out of 5 stars Great album
Not many albums contain songs about premature baby ghost hauntings and playful songs about your mother servicing sailors while you sleep.
Published on November 17, 2010 by Schmapdi
5.0 out of 5 stars That rare thing: an album with no bad songs
It can be a fun exercise to look at albums you love and work out how many of the tracks are "good", "great" versus "average", "bad" and so on. Read more
Published on December 14, 2009 by Patrick Bateman
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