Music Portraits
By Rachael Cassells
Published by The Spring Press
36 pages, full color, soft cover.
Edition of 1000.
$15

Rachael Cassells uses whatever is around to illuminate her subjects—in the case of this book, people who make music. They are lit by street lights, car headlights, window light, lamps, and lonely hallway bulbs—glowing in the soft colors these ambient light sources make. The result is dark and pretty and grainy. I like seeing these people in quiet moments alone, away from stages and fans and other bandmates. Looking at some of them, I'm reminded of certain phrases from their songs. It seems like Cassells had the same idea because she includes a song quote for each portrait.

Cassells' Music Portraits is the second offering from The Spring Press, a new small publisher from Australia and friend of "magazine we love" doingbird. Cassells is a contributing editor there and I've seen her shots of many of these musicians in doingbird's pages, including Bat for Lashes, our pal Jana Hunter, and the wonderful Bill Callahan ((smog)).

This slim volume is very nice. I'm excited to see more from The Spring Press as well as Rachael Cassells. You can buy their stuff directly from their site.