Jennifer Castle Camelot

Camelot, the legendary seat of King Arthur's court in Early Middle Ages Britain, was probably not a real place. A corruptionof the name of a real Romano-Briton city, the word "Camelot" accumulated symbolic, mythic resonances over centuries,until achieving its present usage as a near-synonym of "utopia." In the mid-20th century alone, Camelot inspired anexplosion of representations and appropriations, among them the violent, affectless Arthurian court of Robert Bresson's1974 film Lancelot du Lac and the absurdist iteration of Monty Python's 1975 Holy Grail, both of which feature armoredknights erupting into fountains of blood; the mystical Welsh world of novelist John Cowper Powys's profoundly weird1951 novel Porius, with its Roman cults, wizards and witches, and wanton giants; and the nationalist nostalgia of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy's White House. Unsurprisingly there are fewer Camelots in more recent memory.Camelot, Canadian songwriter Jennifer Castle's extraordinary, moving 2024 chronicle of the artist in early middleage, charts a realer, more rooted, and more metaphorical place than the fabled Camelot of the Early Middle Ages (or itsmyriad depictions), but it too is a space more psychic than physical. In Castle's Camelot, the fantastic interpenetrates themundane, and the Grail, if there is one, distills everyday experience into art and art into faith, subliming terrestrialconcerns into sublime celestial prayers to Mother Nature, and to the unfolding process of perfecting imperfection inone's own nature. Co-produced by Jennifer and longtime collaborator Jeff McMurrich, her seventh record is at once hermost monumental and unguarded to date, demonstrating a mastery of rendering her verse and melodies alike withcrisply poignant economy. For all their pointedly plainspoken lyrical detail and exhilarating full-band musical flourishes,these songs sound inevitable, eternal as morning devotions."Back in Camelot," she sings on the lilting, vulnerable title track, "I really learned a...