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Unstable Fire

By Reyan Ali

By Reyan Ali

In working underneath the moniker of Castanets, Raymond Raposa's incandescent, exploratory folk exists in a state of perpetuity. As he offers new musicians to come and join him for impromptu performances, the cast of players changes from night to night and, by way of this experiment, Castanets roars with folk's potent power of unity.

Upcoming September release "Texas Rose, the Thaw, and the Beast" was recorded in San Diego in April and will be a mesh of tracks that Raposa wrote in Rhode Island, Indiana, Oregon, and New York. UWeekly spoke to Raposa about his ambitiously DIY endeavor before Castanets occupy Skylab this Friday.

UWeekly: How'd you get started in songwriting?

Raymond Raposa: When I was younger, I was living in California and playing in punk bands. The first songs that were written would have been for those kinds of things. After that, I started to get a bit more into improvisation-things where I wasn't using any words. Then, I was about 19 or 20 and living with a girl on Mission Beach, San Diego and started writing songs to sing around the house for her that were a lot closer to the things that I do now.

UW: Why were you writing songs for her?

RR: We were living at the beach. I didn't work until nighttime. She'd been at school in the daytime. It was something to do in the morning-come back and have free time. I'd always listened to folk and country songwriters. It was a natural thing; I didn't have to force it out. It felt like a good thing to do at the time.

UW: Did the songs you wrote back then turn into Castanets songs?

RR: In a way they did, yeah, but they never came out. I don't think I played a Castanets show until the beginning of 2002, at which point I met a friend in the studio that I was getting some work done for another project - everything I'd done at that point was four-track stuff - and he talked me into coming into his studio and getting some songs done. We went in and we did them at the end of 2001 and I thought they sounded pretty. I hadn't been exposed to that much gear or other people with the skills to bring the better of those songs out. That was the turning point. By the time I got around to playing shows, it was a whole new set of songs. The record before "Cathedral" got done but we never put it out. We got it done then but I can't listen to it at all right now.

UW: What effect did writing songs in California versus elsewhere have in affecting the music, if at all? I read that "City of Refuge," for example, was written in Nevada.

RR: I can't speak with total assurance as to whether it does or not but hopefully, it shouldn't.

UW: What about the songwriting process? Does that feel different?

RR: No, I'd like to think that the part of me that's going into write songs is one of the parts that's totally unaffected by landscape and environment. I don't see one house or room and think that different from another house or room. These songs probably would come out the same if I wrote them in Brooklyn, Florida, or Spain. Again, the catch with that is I have no way of knowing. They get written where they get written. It's out of my hands as [to] whether that would have changed in circumstances.

UW: If not the landscape, what plays an influence then?

RR: A little bit of fact and a little bit of fiction. That's the shadow world: that's not something I can talk about. I'd certainly love to but I don't have explanations for a lot of things I do in life. That's one of them sometimes

UW: Since you've been so prolific with releasing almost a record a year since beginning Castanets, do you allot time to go and write the records or do they come together gradually?

RR: There's a purging. When my notebook is full, then it's time to make a record. The way it gets filled up changes but when it gets filled up, it's done. It's never a chore.

UW: Why incorporate the changing line-up musicians?

RR: It's for sustaining my interest in a band. If I knew four years ago [that] the performance of the song I wrote then would sound exactly the same, I don't know if that would be anything to look forward to. It's exciting for me to have the chance and the means to present it in different ways and shades. I admit it's not the best business model: people come to a show and supposing it's a good one they come back to the next one six months later. The professionalism and clinical nature of the way a lot of bands do what they do makes me a little antsy.

UW: What's your favorite line-up that you've performed with?

RR: I'm super-lucky to have played with the majority of people that I've played with. I don't think I can single anyone out. I love singing with Matthew [Houck of Phosphorescent] and Jana [Hunter]. I've been able to get some sustenance out of every format I've had. I do like rock music very much, so if I have the people around that we can get loose and have some fun with it, then it's more rewarding to have rowdy bar band jams.

UW: Castanets is seven years old in 2009. Where do you imagine the project being seven years from now?

RR: It's tough to say. A lot of people whose work I admire I admire because of the hindsight that I'm afforded with. People put out 10, 20 records. I think it's really cool to see the arcs, peaks, and valleys that take place in that. Obviously, I'd be grateful to keep working at that point. If the work that I'm doing holds my interest, there's no reason to stop doing it.

Originally Published: July 1, 2009

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