Tans Are Okay and Love Is The Best: Q & A with Castanets

By J Howell

Over the last couple of years, Castanets has likely seen more time in my CD player than any other single band. I was fortunate enough to meet them in Brighton, England a while back, and then a few months later I hosted them (along with tour mates Shapes & Sizes) when they were in my town. Aside from making some beautiful music, Ray Raposa and the ever-changing cast of Castanets are also great people. This spring, I conducted the following interview via email, in bits and pieces over a few weeks, as time allowed while Ray was traveling.

Ray Raposa
Photo © Mia Ferm

Popshifter: I’m digging the live cassette, especially the Swans cover. How was touring with [Michael] Gira? How’d that come about?

Ray: I learned very much from that man.

Popshifter: I’ve heard he’s a gracious guy.

Ray: The most so.

Popshifter: So the “more light, more air” tour has wound down, and according to the ‘Nets MySpace page “hibernation is go!” but it seems there’s a flurry of Castanets stuff coming out this year. . . at least, it would seem so: there are two Castanets records, with another possible (maybe involving Tara Jane O’Neil), the Powers record, and at least one DVD. . . what can you tell me about these? I’d guess that, with all this stuff in the works, you must’ve had, at least in terms of creativity, a pretty good last few months?

Ray: There’s been a couple things happening, yeah. Some of that stuff dates back a little while. I’m kind of on a radio silence with regard to a couple of those releases and how much I can talk about ’em. City of Refuge is mixed and ready to go. Writ and recorded last August in a Nevada motel, pretty desolate. Not a stoplight in town. I’m really happy with that record. It’s got a lot of dirt in it. Distortions. Mirages. Its sister disc and companion piece will be about a month behind it but that’s a little bit more of a secret for now.

The Powers record is waiting on a mixing. Jana Hunter, Tara Jane O’Neil, and I made a trio record on Tara’s porch last summer in one night and one morning with a karaoke session in between to keep the energy going. Really spacious drones, repeating figures, guitars, thumb pianos, autoharps.

Live cassette from the last West Coast tour just got made; I think it’s sold out.

Tendrils, a DVD LINK of friends (Phosphorescent, Barghest, Dirty Projectors, Golden Ghost, Marla Hansen) doing covers of the In the Vines tracks plus some talks and nature stuffs is coming out in the spring. My friend Mia Ferm is supervising that. She is an incredible filmmaker.

I feel like an ad agency right now.

And yeah, one or two more things that I can’t get into right now. It’ll be a busy year.

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