John Southworth - The Red Castle (2025) [Hi-Res]

The Red Castle is the fifteenth album by John Southworth, an English singer-songwriter based in Canada for most of his career, who turns to Europe as his muse on this record. Created after Southworth witnessed his father's medically assisted death, the album is a spiritual ramble through the Old World, allowing personal grief to bleed through his signature abstraction with added poignancy. Featuring impeccable production and orchestral adornments, the album maintains hallmarks of Southworth's late-period catalog—ethereal harmonies, strings, woodwinds, and a jazz-folk rhythm section—but also incorporates distinctive early music elements like the nyckelharpa and viola da gamba. Songs like "Saint John's Flood," "You Found Your Flower," and the melancholy "Edenborough" explore themes of grief, memory, and wandering, with "Let People Die" serving as a powerful, uncloaked tribute to his late father. The Red Castle showcases Southworth's impossibly high level of quality and is cited by the reviewer as the potential record to elevate him from cult obscurity.

Tracklist:
1-1 John Southworth - Moonball [3:23]
1-2 John Southworth - Town of the castle [3:20]
1-3 John Southworth - Saint John's flood [4:22]
1-4 John Southworth - Burning of the Notre Dame [3:24]
1-5 John Southworth - You found your flower [3:49]
1-6 John Southworth - Somewhere on the island [3:17]
1-7 John Southworth - Edenborough [2:50]
1-8 John Southworth - Try to be like Robin Hood [3:44]
1-9 John Southworth - Let people die [4:56]