Split with I Heart Lung [12"]
Sounds Are Active, 2005
rating: 3.5/5
reviewer: lars gotrich


When I listen back to Castanets' 2004 release, Cathedral, the front side of this gray, twelve-inch swirling piece of speckled vinyl makes more sense. Raymond Raposa is no stranger to the drone. It's what makes his psychedelic country so attractively haunting and exceptionally more textural than other folks in the "Weird Americana." Raposa captures one of the few instances in which the music marries the words, a cryptic narrative enhanced by the atmosphere (and vice versa). Here Castanets removes the lyric for the devastating hum encircling the very stark deserts and ghostly railways they evoke elsewhere. The initial attack on "You Ain't Goin Nowhere" is unsettling and set off by a siren of close-pitch whirls joined quickly by a mimicking guitar bend. They'll fade away into the background and return later, while crackling feedback commands the foreground. The loops of drone are matched and layered to deafening effect with interspersed vocal chants, chimes, and tinkling percussion (yeah, I said "tinkling"). The track eventually resolves with a stately electric guitar strum under Raposa's moans, which remind me of Panda Bear's unintelligible liturgies, and delve more into psychedelic territory focused on guitar tones looped for what seems a blissful eternity. Finally, Raposa gets into some of the Fahey-isms he only hinted at beforehand (and for too short a time, if you ask me).

On the flipside is the Longbeach, California duo I Heart Lung, made up of guitarist and noisemaker Chris Schlarb and some of the fastest sticks in the west, Tom Steck. "This past year's free MP3 download Blood & Light (available here) was some of the most high energy free-jazz to spit out of America. "Speedboats for Breakfast" immediately keeps the rapid fire madness ripping out tongues like lollipops with Steck's dizzying trapset introduction. The duo has a great dichotomy working to their advantage throughout: Schlarb's free-flying fusion-y Sharrock-n-Hendrix guitar work rings over Steck's polyrhythmic aerobic pillaging. It's not all frantic as I make it out to be, though. The guitar will sustain and softly coo to cymbal-taps and the constant, yet oddly comforting, drumroll in "Song of the Boatman of the River Roon," resulting in an ethereal duality of rhythm. The feeling carries over in the final cut with more of an emphasis on layering fuzzed-out guitar loops to a Fripp-ian climax. I imagine if Evening Star were made with a figure like Han Bennink ravaging the drums, "If I Were A Young Man No" is the extremely exciting result.

A1. You Ain't Goin Nowhere
A2. Nothing Was Delivered
B1. Speedboats for Breakfast
B2. Song of the Boatman of the River Roon
B3. If I Were A Young Man No

First Light's Freeze
Asthmatic Kitty, 2005
rating: 3.5/5
reviewer: grigsby


First Light's Freeze is an entirely apt name for Castanet's third full-length album, summing up its overall mood. Whereas the prior album Cathedral didn't call to mind hymns of praise so much as music to be dreary to in a backwoods log cabin, First Light's Freeze is a continuation of that sound, both colder and brighter. The album is split fairly evenly between stripped-down dirges that feature voice and strummed guitar for the most part, and more structured 'songs' where a larger band steps into the picture. While the Castanets' two different sounds, I believe, are meant to complement each other, this time around the 'songs' are filled with such beauty as to nearly capsize their more meandering brethren. Right near the very end, the two tracks "No Voice Was Raised" and "All That I Have Known To Change In You" are the strongest examples, threatening to blow the rest of the album away. The former begins with a stronger melody than anything prior, and a notably brisker pace facilitated by a drum machine. The song gradually builds to the point where live drums and noisy guitars round out the track in particularly dramatic form. "All That I Have Known...," on the other hand, is much more lush than anything on the album. Probably the most lovely song frontman Raymond Raposa has written thus far, its strength prompted repeated listenings after the first time hearing it. None of this is meant to imply that there isn't beauty to be found in the other tracks, but rather that Raposa's strength might lie in melancholy pop songs, and at that, he might be peerless.

1. (The Waves Are Rolling Beneath Your Skin)
2. Into The Night
3. A Song is Not the Song of the World
4. Good Friend, Yr. Hunger
5. (We Drew Uncertain Breath)
6. Bells Aloud
7. First Light's Freeze
8. Evidence (A Mask of Horizon, Distortion of Form)
9. No Voice Was Raised
10. (Migration Concentric
11. All That I Know to Have Changed In You
12. Dancing With Someone (Privelege of Everything)
13. Reflecting in the Angles