The Castanets is Ray Raposa, a San Diego native whose album City of Refuge is an exercise in solitude. Raposa recorded the album in Overton, Nevada, a two-bar town ...

Often dismissed as little more than a niche songwriter futzing with the boundaries of his own woodsy, quasi-Americana palate, Ray Raposa (a.k.a. Castanets) has remained a sorely overlooked act. Often ...

Raymond Raposa has been giving us itinerant folk songs as Castanets since the heyday of freak-folk, but he's survived and evolved. "Out For The West," the lead single from Castanets' upcoming ...

Like much of his work, Ray Raposa's eerie batch of songs on the Rafter Roberts-produced Texas Rose, The Thaw, And The Beasts comes with a lonesome, swampy feel: Like everything was recorded in the ...

Is this Americana from outer space or extraterrestrial music from Earth? You know, either/or. Cathedral is a new entry in the burgeoning genre known as freakfolk, which is united less by the ...

"I do not want to explain, and I'm not going to," Raymond Raposa sings on "Dancing With Someone (Privilege of Everything)". He's not just whistling "Dixie", although come to think of it, doing so ...

It feels like it’s too early to be doing this – writing about Castanets, trying to figure out what Raymond Raposa lets go or puts through his head. For most activities, it’s way, way too late.

Broadly defined, In the Vines is an indie-folk record. Indie-folk is a crowded genre, perhaps because of its accessibility-- a decent, appropriately weathered voice and a cheap acoustic guitar are all ...