''Castaways and Cutouts'' is the first full-length album by

The Decemberists The Decemberists are an American indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band consists of Colin Meloy (lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), Chris Funk (guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (piano, keyboards, accordion), Nate ...

, originally released on May 21, 2002, on

Hush Records Hush Records is a Portland, Oregon based record label founded by Chad Crouch. Background Crouch, frontman of the band Blanket Music, organized Hush Records in 1997, when he self-released a solo record called ''Portland, Or''. The following year, ...

and reissued on May 6, 2003, on

Kill Rock Stars Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally know ...

. The album's title is taken from a lyric of the song "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade". The album cover was designed by the

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

artist

Carson Ellis Carson Friedman Ellis (born October 5, 1975) is a Canadian-born American children's book illustrator and artist. She received a Caldecott Honor for her children's book '' Du Iz Tak?'' (2016). Her work is inspired by folk art, art history, and mys ...

, the long-time girlfriend (now wife) of frontman

Colin Meloy Colin Patrick Henry Meloy (born October 5, 1974) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and author best known as the frontman of the Portland, Oregon, indie folk rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoust ...

. She has created artwork for each of the band's albums.

Reception

''Castaways and Cutouts'' received mostly positive reviews. The album ranked number 89 on ''Under the Radar'''s Top 200 Albums of the 2000s and number 96 on ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

''s The 100 Best Albums of 2000–2004.

Track listing

All songs written by

Personnel

According to the liner notes of ''Castaways and Cutouts''. *

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

Chris Funk Christopher Funk (born November 28, 1971) is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist best known as a member of the Portland, Oregon, indie rock band The Decemberists. He plays guitar, pedal steel, piano, violin, dobro, hurdy-gurdy, ma ...

– guitar,

pedal steel The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can ...

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

Jenny Conlee Jennifer Lynn Conlee-Drizos (born December 12, 1971) is an American musician, best known as the accordionist, pianist, organist, keyboardist, melodica player, and occasional backup singer and harmonicist for the indie rock quintet The Decemberi ...

– Hammond organ,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, Rhodes piano, accordion *

Nate Query Nate Query (born September 5, 1973) is an American musician best known as the bassist of the Portland, Oregon indie rock band The Decemberists. He plays electric bass, upright bass, banjo and cello. He makes appearances on many albums by Portland ...

–

upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar ...

*Ezra Holbrook – drums, percussion, vocals

Production

*Produced by The Decemberists *Recorded by Simon Widdowson *Mastered by Ryan Foster *Design by Third Eyebrow (.com) *Art direction by Colin Meloy and

*Cover painting and illustrations by Carson Ellis *Inner-tray photo by Jonathan Gitelson *Sound clip in "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" from ''

Archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the hierarchy of angels. The word ''archangel'' itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings that are very similar to archangels are found in a number of other relig ...

'', directed by

Guy Maddin Guy Maddin (born February 28, 1956) is a Canadian screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer, and film editor of both features and short films, as well as an installation artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since completing his first film i ...

References

The Decemberists albums 2002 debut albums Hush Records albums {{2000s-indie-pop-album-stub