castanets

castanets - city of refuge (asthmatic kitty 2008)

reaparece Raymond Raposa…y hay que ver cómo reaparece: City of Refuge es el disco que me gustaría haber escuchado después de Cathedral. los coros de Jana Hunter en Glory B, un gospel delicado llamado I'll Fly away, el clima general, tan desértico y ambiental que podría ser una banda sonora de cualquier spaguetti western, y After the Fall, que es la joya de un disco muy muy bonito, en el que, por fin, no sobra nada. ojalá que su próximo homenaje a Hank Williams siga la senda de City of Refuge

"The result of three weeks alone in a Nevada desert motel room, City of Refuge blazed into Ray Raposa's mind with the rising sun...Far from distractions and infused with the sense of isolation explored by the songs he'd written for the album, it proved the optimal backdrop. Minimal overdubs by friends Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson, Scott Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble), and co-producer Ero Gray were added later, but the silence of the sparsely populated region underscores the sounds of Raposa's voice and instruments.

...With an uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos and spaghetti-western guitar interludes, City suggests a film soundtrack. Possibly a nocturnal, black and white contemporary desert western with characters real and imaginary, a failing motel on a little-used old highway, gas-well flares flickering far off in the night, the spirit-body of Lee Van Cleef watching from the shadows, a sliding eidetic road seen with closed eyes, the disturbing memory of an encounter that may or may not have been a dream, fallen bare wires crackling somewhere in the desert, the mingled odors of sagebrush smoke, candle wax, warm beer, and an overheated amplifier, and the howls of coyotes..." asthmatic kitty

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