Castanets

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“Let’s Dance for real this time,” is printed in the midst of the poem I found unfolding the CD booklet for Castanets’ First Light’s Freeze. Poetry awaits you throughout this melancholy, psychedelic folk-rock album, starting with “Freeze this Frame.”

Bewildered by the amount of sound, the amount of meaning and the amount of heart; I have fallen again for another Asthmatic Kitty artist. A challenge awaits me, to explain the sound and the components that make this experience so provocative.

Like a surgeon, Castanets have lyrically invented “New Americana” cutting into topics of capitalism, anti-war, relationships, other important issues facing current day USA. They are sewn up into a personal package and the recovery begins as you start to comprehend the contents. Like carpenters, Castanets build sounds over top of each other, creating beautiful pieces of architecture. From the draftsman to the design, through the electrical engineering, the mechanical engineering, the building, the embellishments, to the final results, you have the experience of going inside the building and seeing its corners and archways and each time you visit you’ll notice something new.

With the electronics and effects, guitar, chimes, piano, vocal harmonies, organ, tambourine and other percussion, banjo, bass, drums, saxophone and more, Castanets have created a dark dismay, and an improvised-sounding mixture of expression. With hopes dormant, Castanets challenge the worlds' faults with story-like narrative.

San Diego based Raymond Raposa collaborates with New York Sax player Daniel Carter, Justice Constantine, G. Lucas Crane, Heidi Diehl, Sayard Egan, Orlando Greenhill, Nathan Hubbard, Chris Schlarb, Gabriel Sundy, Jarvis Taveniere and labelmates Sufjan Stevens, Rafter Robets, Bridgit DeCook, Nathan Delffs, Create (!), LA based Free-Jazz Collective, and members of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice. All have helped make this experience praiseworthy.

Capturing the concentration of all independent and underground avid listeners, the buzz will rise from the ground like vapor on a rainy day and will touch anyone who leaves the house in that kind of weather; should you go out on that kind of day, tell your friends – maybe they’ll catch on and try to “Dance for real this time” -in the rain, because it is liberating.

Kristen Cudmore

First Light's Freeze

Asthmatic Kitty, 2005

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First Light's Freeze

Castanets

Asthmatic Kitty, 2005

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