Castanets

On 2007’s In the Vines, Castanets leader Ray Raposa fashioned a spooky, beautiful and seemingly offhand folk record that shimmered and seethed underneath his wizened hobo’s voice. It was a full-band effort that sounded incomplete even as it employed drums and background vocals. His latest full-length, City of Refuge, finds Raposa singing like a man watching daytime television in a desert motor court and waiting for a break in the weather. In fact, he cut City alone in a Nevada motel and added a few overdubs from the likes of Sufjan Stevens when he got back to civilization. With plenty of amplifier hum and detuned guitars, the result isn’t a perfect record, and it takes a while to gather steam. Still, Raposa’s simple, pentatonic melodies and out-of-meter compositions skirt randomness without coming across as merely sloppy. 

City is a rather harsh record in spots. “The Destroyer” builds from four basic chords and incorporates a rumbling sound that could be a passing truck or an earthquake. “High Plains 1” is nothing but echoed blips and beeps moving at different speeds, as if Raposa is tuning in to transmissions from a wobbly satellite hovering above the desert floor. “The Quiet” moves with clangorous guitars, while “Glory B” demonstrates Raposa’s affinity for 3/4 time.

City is some kind of weird expressionist Americana that rewards patient listening. “Long as I’ve lived/I’ve wanted to die,” Raposa sings in “Shadow Valley,” and what makes the album effective is how relentlessly Raposa’s minimalist ideas seek fresh water, so they might live another day.