Gavin Castleton: Hospital Hymns EP

Release Date: May 14, 2007 (digital only)

01. Hymn 1: Maternity Ward in G Major
02. Hymn 2: Women's Care in E Flat Major
03. Hymn 3: Dialysis in G Minor
04. Hymn 4: Rehab in D Major
05. Hymn 5: E.R. in E Flat Major

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Album info:

Hospital Hymns was recorded at Chung King Studios (NY), The Chainsaw House (RI), and The Clive Davis School Studio (NY). It was engineered by Danny Arango, Andrew Henshaw, and Gavin Castleton.

All songs were mixed by Gavin Castleton, and mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror (MA).
Flute was performed by Anne Castleton.
guitar on track 2 & 5 was performed by Steve Geuting, and additional guitar on track 5 by Danny Arango.
Cello, double bass, viola, and violin were performed by The Fantom Quartet of NYC.
All other instruments were performed by Gavin Castleton.
All songs were written and produced by Gavin Castleton.

Overview:

Hospital Hymns is the fifth solo release from Gavin Castleton in two years. It's the story of a fictional 76 year old stockroom worker in a hospital whose spirituality makes his coworkers uneasy. The record was funded and inspired by a 6 month stint in the stockroom of a Warwick Hospital in 2005. The music of Hospital Hymns is the marriage of the hymnals that sound tracked his Mormon upbringing and the modern electronica, prog rock, and hip hop that have been his focus for the last 8 years.

Press:

"Genius is tricky-reward it and it bloats; starve it and it thrives. Thankfully, Rhode Island's hardest working composer/singer/writer/producer Gavin Castleton is ravenous, even after 12 years of masterminding Providence's inimitable Grüvis Malt. Hospital Hymns is a unique accomplishment: a musical novella sung from the perspective of an eccentric 76-year-old orderly working to maintain the functionality and spiritual calm of a bustling hospital. The music-delicate and soulful, sweeping and orchestral-borrows from actual hymns, and the composition is a flawless construct of strings, piano, beats/drums, voice and guitar.” – Filter Magazine