Cast Spells

It’s pretty common that bands known for technical ability will push the limits of their playing with each new release, but Chicago’s Maps & Atlases latest work strives to flex both creative muscles and the ones in their fingers.

“I don’t think we were ever heavy in any way,” said lead singer, guitarist and most-bearded member Dave Davison when talking about how the band used to share the stage with the post-hardcore group Russian Circles. The band’s early work bared the signs of math rock, but now Maps & Atlases more closely resemble a folk band.

Perch Patchwork came out last summer and was the band’s first full-length offering, filled with rich, subtle instrumentation and an increased focus on Davison’s voice. Being their debut LP, Maps & Atlases spent the time to make a cohesive piece of work that builds upon their technically proficient sound.

“It was a really fun and productive way to allow the songs to take shape,” said Davison about the more experimental process to songwriting the band took with this record.

“On previous work with Maps & Atlases we would spend a long time getting ideas together to play live, and then the recording process became mostly a way of documenting that live experience,” he said.

“It was the prospect of recording and letting whatever happened happen, like if something started seeming a certain way or going in a different direction, to just allow it to go that way was only possible through this type of recording. It was really exciting for everybody in the band. Jason made everyone excited to explore more.”

Jason Cupp produced Perch Patchwork, and a warm, complex sound was formed – one which draws influence from as many directions as genres in their hometown music scene. Cupp worked with Davison in 2009 for his solo work under the name Cast Spells, and after exploring these new approaches to writing brought the artfully arranged sound to a full band context. The result builds off the Cast Spells EP, with engaging, unorthodox percussion and melodic form catchy enough for a pop song.

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Sargent House is featuring the Cast Spells EP as their “May We Introduce You” feature as the free Download all this week so now you can get Bright Works And Baton for FREE . While you are at it you can check out the split EP with Good Old War. In other news Maps & Atlases will be going on tour with  RX Bandits and Zechs Marquise in June/July. Dave will  be performing Cast Spells songs for the July 21st show on that tour in Chicago.  SEE ALL TOUR DATES HERE
Just click Download to get for free. 

David Davison stopped by Breakthrough Radio in New York on 4/19/11 while out on tour with Maps & Atlases  for a bit of a chat and an acoustic session of his Cast Spells songs. 

Take A LISTEN HERE 
00:00 Cast Spells on BTR Live Studio
01:21 Potted Plant
04:51 Interview
09:08 Vampire
11:56  Pioneer Scalps
14:38 Interview
15:32 American Quilts
17:40 Interview
21:18 A Badge
24:08 Interview
28:17 Glamorous Glowing
30:08 Interview
32:50 Finish

A really beautiful cover done by my dear friend Matthew Embree of a Cast Spells song “A Badge”. Thanks a lot Matt.

What happens when director Phil Thomas Katt & Horatio Sanz get there hands on a Cast Spells song? Well weird videos happen. And we love it. Thanks to PTK and Horatio for their glorious contributions.

(Source: youtube.com)

It was nice to finally get to see Teri Gender Bender’s band Le Butcherettes play live recently at SXSW. Here is a clip of the first time we met her over at Sargent House where she joined in along with the rest of the guys in Maps & Atlases to play a Cast Spells song called “Glamorous Glowing” 

oh thanks Alison!

Cast Spells  will be playing the Sargent House & Rodriguez Lopez Productions official show this year at SXSW - Saturday March 19th at Emo’s Annex. Doors at 7:15pm Lineup Below. (Badges/Wristbands) Pay at door is first come first serve. Cast Spells on at 8pm.

Native 
Cast Spells 
Gypsyblood 
Therapies Son 
Zechs Marquise  
Adebisi Shank 
Le Butcherettes 
Fang Island 
Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group

Dave Davison doesn’t really understand the label “math rock” that some people have given his band Maps and Atlases. Math rock the music, like mathematics the subject, after all, requires “coldness and calculation,” according to Davison. But the four members of Maps and Atlases met at Columbia College in Chicago—an art school.  Davison majored in cultural studies, Erin Elders and Chris Hainey were film majors, and Shiraz Dada majored in sound engineering. As a band, they’ve been called math rock because of their complex rhythmic structures and unconventional time signatures.  But with their debut release Perch Patchwork (Barsuk Records), they’ve written what critics have called a more accessible sound.  Regardless, Maps & Atlases plays some wonderfully unique and creative music.  But that’s what you get when four guys from art school start a band. 

After the video, read more about Davison and his writing process, including how poetry affects his songwriting, how a good long walk is the perfect way to write a Maps & Atlases song, and his penchant for leaving long voice mail messages for friends. 

Two of you were film majors.  How does that background inform the band’s songs?

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Cast Spells new video for “Glamorous Glowing” from the EP Bright Works And Baton , directed by Behn Fannin for Refused TV. 

And more great news ! Steve Mason (formerly of The Beta Band) will finally be touring the US in support of his 2010 release, Boys Outside. Joining him on all dates as support will be Cast Spells !

Steve Mason & Cast Spells 
December 14 - Red Palace - Washington DC 
December 15 - M Room - Philadelphia, PA
December 16 - Knitting Factory - Brooklyn, NY
December 17 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
December 18 - Great Scott - Cambridge, MA
December 19 - Il Motore - Montreal, QC
December 20 - Wrongbar - Toronto, ON

Cast Spells, Bright Works and Baton

Bright Works and Baton, the first EP by Cast Spells, is something to be played at a summer barbeque or other such lazy social event. It’s bright and pleasant, and it’s not one of those that has to “grow on you,” or that requires a “refined taste” in music. You’ll find that even your most critical impulses will be quelled by Dave Davison’s friendly, unpretentious lyrics and catchy, steady drums.

Dave Davison (the man behind Maps & Atlases and Hey!Tonal) created this solo side project, as (I’m assuming) a way to channel his inner indie-folk-rocker. Recorded in seven days in the basement of his childhood home, the whole EP has a feeling of home, of being comfortable and surrounded by friends and family. His lyrics are full of placid Middle-American imagery, like “jackets sewn like an American quilt,” and “swept beneath the mower blades of the paralyzed old plow.”

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Thank you to If You Make It for coming along to the New Jersey show and shooting this clip of A Badge with Good Old War and Hezekiah Jones helping out.

Dave will be taking Cast Spells overseas along with his other project Hey! Tonal , together they will be performing in Europe a bunch of shows.

HEY! TONAL / CAST SPELLS - EUROPEAN TOUR 2010
Feb 25- Treibhaus - Luzern Switzerland
Feb 26 - Blockhaus DY10 - Nantes France
Feb 27 - Espace B - Paris France
Mar 2 - La Meltarie - Lille France
Mar 3 - Belvedere - Namur Belgium
Mar 5 - Lades - Copenhagen Denmark
Mar 6 - Powiekszenie - Warsaw Poland
Mar 7 - Klub Re - Krakow Poland
Mar 10 - Boomker - Fano Italy
Mar 12 - Cinema Vekkio - Corneliano d’Alba Italy *
Mar 13 - Grrrnd Zero - Lyon France *
Mar 14 - L’Usine - Geneva Switzerland*

*Hey! Tonal Only

ORDER YOUR COPY ON CD HERE

Cast Spells has a new split EP with Good Old War. It feature two new songs from each band and will be available on CD on their tour together in December. It will also be released Digitally everywhere on December 2nd. The CD won’t be available in stores only on tour or at the online store. In celebration of the release both bands will be touring together. Good Old War will be helping out Dave as his band for all the shows, and then will go on to play their own headline sets. Also joining us on all the shows is Hezekiah Jones.

GOOD OLD WAR / CAST SPELLS / HEZEKIAH JONES
12//3 Knitting Factory - Brooklyn, NY
12//4 Northstar - Philadelphia, PA
12//5 The Middle East Upstairs -Boston, MA (matinee show)
12//6 The Space - Hamden, CT
12//7 Westcott Theater -Syracuse, NY
12//8 Maxwell’s - Hoboken, NJ
12//9 The Quarter - Baltimore, MD
12/11 The Basement - Columbus, OH
12/12 Smiling Moose Upstairs - Pittsburgh, PA