Agrelia's Castle - Elders and Ancestors (2015)

Combining the sounds of vintage Fender Rhodes, B3, and warm soundbeds with hauntingly beautiful vocals, Native American Style Flutes, guitars, cello, and sitar, set over the soothing sounds of nature, the music is both ethereal and earthy, calming and uplifting, inviting the listener on a heart-filling 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. This music is dedicated to all of them. GRAMMY®-nominated Producer & Keyboardist for the Waterboys, Paul Brown, and his wife April Brown, vocalist and Native American-style flautist.

Paul Brown, the Grammy Award-nominated Nashville producer and keyboardist, describes his new album with his wife as an artists journey together through the cancer landscape with songs intended to create peace, joy, and hope. But at its heart, Elders and Ancestors is really a love story. Paul and April Brown call themselves Agrelia s Castle when they collaborate musically. They released a track in 2012, Spirit Dreaming, and have been working on a full-length album ever since. That is, of course, as time and schedules have allowed. Paul s had a bit of whirlwind year, jetting to the Grammys in 2014 for producing a nominee in the Best Blues Album category, Down in Louisiana by Bobby Rush, recorded at Brown s Ocean Soul Studios in Nashville. He toured nationally playing keyboards for his good friend and soul brother, Mike Farris, the Screamin Cheetah Wheelies founder whose Shine For All the People won the 2015 Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album. And he toured internationally when friend Mike Scott asked him to play keyboards with The Waterboys, who performed The Girl Who Slept for Scotland on The Late Show with David Letterman during the show s final month. But of all the musical accomplishments, professional success and rock star-like moments rubbing shoulders with celebrities, Brown finds the New Age album recorded with his wife to be his most meaningful and rewarding achievement. Our story started in June of 2003, when Paul and I met in Memphis on Beale Street, April says. He was playing with a band called FreeWorld. Awesome band. Not two months later, on July 29, 2003, I found out I had breast cancer. So, our story has always been entwined with my cancer journey. Elders and Ancestors is set for a Sept. 1 release by Mysterium Music, an indie New Age label dedicated to musical works for healing, relaxation, rejuvenation of the mind, body, spirit and soul. Through this label our goal is to get this music into the hands of chemo and radiation facilities, hospice centers, caregivers and therapists to use as a calming tool … for those battling cancer, Alzheimer's or any other serious illness, Paul says. The music on Elders and Ancestors is indeed calming. At times, the musical passages are reminiscent of instrumental interludes from Dark Side of the Moon - era Pink Floyd ( Adrift ). Spirit Dreaming features April's Native American style flute playing and Sonnet showcases her soothing vocals. (Her paintings are featured in the artwork for the album cover.) Breathe features Memphis sitar Master Richard Cushing with Nashville guitar and cello master Tom Shinness and recalls George Harrison s Indian-influenced work with The Beatles and as a solo artist. Brown s excellent keyboard work on Fender Rhodes and the Hammond B3 are featured throughout. Farris delivers and impassioned guest vocal on Wayfaring Stranger. With musical friends like Farris lending their soulful talents to the collaboration, the results are powerful, though in this context the star power is understated. Elders and Ancestors is intended to provide solace to the listener, though it s also the beautiful result of a husband-and-wife collaboration. It is surely a journey unlike any other we've ever taken together, Paul says. These days, April continues to defy odds and outrun the painful cancer.

Tracklist:

1. Elders and Ancestors
2. Adrift
3. Breathe
4. Spirit Dreaming
5. Sonnet
6. Wayfaring Stranger
7. Agrelia's Lullaby