Paper Castles is the songwriting project and band fronted by Jericho, Vermont’s Paddy Reagan.

 

Sipsman is speaking in third person and is thrilled to help make the back catalog of one of Vermont’s best kept secrets available on streaming services. Dive into the Paper Castles 101 playlist on Bandcamp via Buy Music Club or Spotify. Additionally, the longstanding songwriting nom de plume and band of Jericho’s Paddy Reagan is sharing “Crooked and Narrow,” a previously lost b-side from 2018’s Acceptionalism. The track’s structure resembles "Happiness is a Warm Gun" or "Kicked It in the Sun," a collection of weird hooky pop fragments carefully woven together by someone who knows what they’re doing.

   

Some background on Paper Castles: if 2011’s Bleating Heart had Reagan making sense of Bill Callahan and Jeff Tweedy’s respective songbooks, then 2013’s Vague Era had Reagan making sense of Pavement and Deerhunter’s respective sonics. Those poles were channelled into the DMZ of 2018’s Acceptionalism while upping the recording fidelity thanks to Ryan Power and Urian Hackney (Rough Francis, The Armed) behind the decks. Reagan also solidified the Paper Castles lineup in the years following Acceptionalism, the project still firmly bolstered by drummer Brennan Mangan, (NNA Tapes and Sophomore Lounge recording artist) guitarist Wren Kitz, and bassist Emily Tompkins. Throughout its existence, PC has warmed Vermont stages for literally every single artist touring through, including Big Thief, Sheer Mag, Explosions in the Sky, Chris Cohen, Frankie Cosmos, William Tyler, Protomartyr, Pile, and The Wallflowers to name just a few.

Sipsman will release the next Paper Castles record in 2025.