Cathedral, the first nationally released album by San Diego's Castanets, introduces a unique new voice of avant-country. From somber love ballads to haunted tales of frustrated redemption, Cathedral illuminates architecture where faith and doubt clash in an often ambiguous search for the divine.

CD $12.99

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With First Light's Freeze, Castanets return with a dark mutant-country sound infused with strands of free-jazz and a late-seventies Nashville big-radio strut hijacked by post-post-punk unravelers. The result is a beautiful mix of somber reflection, destination-unknown travelogue, and subversive anti-war boogie. Castanets' unrelenting creative pioneering delightfully befuddles, as they simultaneously honor and dismantle "New Americana". While Cathedral explored the themes of domesticity and t   [ read more ]

CD $12.99

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Animal Collective  Feels, Deerhoof  The Runners Four , The Fiery Furnaces  Rehearsing My Choir

VINYL FORMAT. With First Light's Freeze, Castanets return with a dark mutant-country sound infused with strands of free-jazz and a late-seventies Nashville big-radio strut hijacked by post-post-punk unravelers. The result is a beautiful mix of somber reflection, destination-unknown travelogue, and subversive anti-war boogie. Castanets' unrelenting creative pioneering delightfully befuddles, as they simultaneously honor and dismantle "New Americana". While Cathedral explored the themes of domes   [ read more ]

LP $12.99

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VINYL FORMAT. Originally released in 2004, this was the debut by a unique voice of avant-country, San Diego's Castanets. Backed by haunting, angelic voices and recorded mostly in a secluded cabin in the northern California woodlands, Cathedral illuminates the dark architecture where faith and doubt clash in an often ambiguous search for the divine. Castanets create music that is epic and inspiring. From somber love ballads to haunted tales of frustrated redemption, the delivery is potent and devoid o   [ read more ]

LP $11.99

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VINYL FORMAT. Ray Raposa had nearly finished this follow-up to 2005's First Light's Freeze when he was mugged at gunpoint outside his Brooklyn home. This climaxed a year of depression and nomadic, nocturnal dislocation for him. Appropriately, the album is based on a Hindu fable about being trapped in an inescapable fate, with death and the limitations of our physical lives closing in from all corners. But it isn't all darkness and peril; there's a strange sense of hope and delight in the brief moment   [ read more ]

LP $11.99

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VINYL FORMAT. This limited edition 7" includes a remix of "Strong Animal" from Castanets recent In the Vines full-player, as well as "Golden," an outtake from that same album. The remix was part of a series of remixes given out via the interweb to help promote In The Vines. This one was too deliciously geared for dance floors so we felt that not putting it to wax was a crime to the night. West Coaster and Hero to All, Rafter, manned boards and faders and clickers for it. Bass up, mids wherever   [ read more ]

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VINYL FORMAT. An uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos, and spaghetti western guitar interludes. City Of Refuge suggests a film soundtrack; a narrative propelled by yearning, passion, dislocation, ambiguity, regret, redemption, cryptic symbolism, and other art film obligatories. This is not just music but emotional catharsis. Guest appearances by Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson (Jessamine, Sunn O))))), Scot Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble), and co-p   [ read more ]

LP $12.99

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An uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos, and spaghetti western guitar interludes. City Of Refuge suggests a film soundtrack; a narrative propelled by yearning, passion, dislocation, ambiguity, regret, redemption, cryptic symbolism, and other art film obligatories. This is not just music but emotional catharsis. Guest appearances by Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson (Jessamine, Sunn O))))), Scot Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble), and co-producer Ero Gr   [ read more ]

MP3 $10.49

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An uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos, and spaghetti western guitar interludes. City Of Refuge suggests a film soundtrack; a narrative propelled by yearning, passion, dislocation, ambiguity, regret, redemption, cryptic symbolism, and other art film obligatories. This is not just music but emotional catharsis. Guest appearances by Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson (Jessamine, Sunn O))))), Scot Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble), and co-producer Ero Gr   [ read more ]

CD $12.99

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Ray Raposa had nearly finished this follow-up to 2005's First Light's Freeze when he was mugged at gunpoint outside his Brooklyn home. This climaxed a year of depression and nomadic, nocturnal dislocation for him. Appropriately, the album is based on a Hindu fable about being trapped in an inescapable fate, with death and the limitations of our physical lives closing in from all corners. But it isn't all darkness and peril; there's a strange sense of hope and delight in the brief moments of beauty th   [ read more ]

CD $12.99

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Six Organs of Admittance  Dark Noontide, Papercuts  Mockingbird, Band Of Horses  Everything All The Time

This video document, created by Mia Ferm, serves as a snapshot of a particular moment in time surrounding Raposa and Castanets. It is a meditative reflection on the mesmerizing motion of water, the beauty of natural light, and the spontaneity of friends. Responding to the thickness of the songs on In the Vines, here the songs are stripped bare and presented by new voices that further reveal the lyrical beauty of Raposa's songwriting. It is equal parts home movie (ala Jonas Mekas), Downtown 81, Pull M   [ read more ]

DVD $13.99

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With First Light's Freeze, Castanets return with a dark mutant-country sound infused with strands of free-jazz and a late-seventies Nashville big-radio strut hijacked by post-post-punk unravelers. The result is a beautiful mix of somber reflection, destination-unknown travelogue, and subversive anti-war boogie. Castanets' unrelenting creative pioneering delightfully befuddles, as they simultaneously honor and dismantle 'New Americana'. While Cathedral explored the themes of domesticity and t   [ read more ]

MP3 $10.49

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