''Castaways and Cutouts'' is the first full-length album by The Decemberists, originally released on May 21, 2002, on Hush Records and reissued on May 6, 2003, on Kill Rock Stars. 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, the long-time girlfriend (now wife) of frontman Colin Meloy. 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''s The 100 Best Albums of 2000–2004.

Track listing

All songs written by Colin Meloy.

Personnel

According to the liner notes of ''Castaways and Cutouts''. * Colin Meloy – vocals, guitar, percussion * Chris Funk – guitar, pedal steel, theremin * Jenny Conlee –

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, piano,

Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

* Nate Query – upright bass *Ezra Holbrook –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

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

References

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