I Am Casting Speaks to Contemporary Anxieties About Progress, the Other With “Flood” (premiere)

“Flood” is the new single from North Carolina’s I Am Casting and arrives ahead of the group’s debut LP, Carnival Barkers. Musically the tune imagines a collaboration between Paul Simon and the late Kevin Gilbert (Toy Matinee, Sheryl Crow); a poignant and politically-charged lyric rest atop musical settings that deftly find the intersection between prog and pop. It’s adventurous without being pretentious and catchy without being vapid. Moreover, the lyrics choose not to announce themselves with forced metaphors and contemporary sloganeering that will wash away with the next hashtag. Instead, we are witness to something that can speak to problems of future ages, though we can certainly hope the horrors we face now will have disappeared by then.

I Am Casting offered this about “Flood”: “The lyrics consider how discrimination towards the ‘other’ can be inflamed by political posturing and cynical power grabs. The ‘flood’ might be feared by those in power and by those anxious about change, but to this narrator, the water is cleansing (‘here comes the flood, to wash the banks of blood’). The musical arrangement and video content capture the apprehension of the lyrics, and with each chorus, the music thickens and swells with the incoming flood. The video incorporates public domain footage from historical events (e.g., immigrants arriving at Ellis Island; violence during the Selma to Montgomery marches) relevant to the song’s themes and still-present attitudes, tensions, and political maneuvering.”