Album Reviews

Album Review: Castanets – City of Refuge (Asthmatic Kitty)

By | Published on Monday 10 November 2008

Castanets

‘City Of Refuge’ feels like the soundtrack to a film set somewhere in deepest dustiest America. Its electro-infused Americana evokes some sort of Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, had Clint Eastwood been in league with the devil. In actuality, the background behind Ray Raposa’s fourth full length album is not a million miles away from that. Whilst wandering the depths of Nevada, Raposa stumbled upon a remote gas station in Overton and there, he was smacked in the face by inspiration, leading him to set up camp in a nearby motel room with his only his co-producer and the howling coyotes for company. The result of this three week emersion in the wilds is pretty much what appears on this album, with only a few overdubs added for polish at a later stage by such highly-regarded collaborators as Sufjan Stevens and Jana Hunter. It is minimal alt country that retains a pretty low key tone throughout.  We’re not introduced to Raposa’s haunted vocals until the fourth track. They induce the melancholic blackness of Nick Cave but creep along the floor rather than ever escalating to Cave’s signature cinematic vehemence. The lilt of Sufjan Steven’s banjo perforates the discomfort of the reverb heavy electronic walls of noise. The sudden emergence of Raposa’s haunting voice takes on a sometimes Dylan-esque snarl that is devoid of any hope or lightness, resulting in dramatic alien soudscapes which are speckled with a few archaic feeling country standards for good measure. ‘City Of Refuge’ never really melts together and the contemporary electronic and traditional elements of the album are always opposing instead of complimenting each other which works to further communicate the Raposa’s feelings of isolation and despair. MB

Buy from iTunes
Buy from Amazon



READ MORE ABOUT: |