Everybody’s got stories and histories and back-stories but when the lights go out and The Crazy goes down, what good’ll they do you? What we need is courage, sanctity, and some love (carnal, secret, even troubled.) We need Son House or Charley Patton, nothin’ but clapping hands, and hoarse voice telling us about Gawwwd, the Devil, that WOMAN. We need beats smashing outta the back end of a Cadillac in some back-end-town. And we get alla that with a Castanets record.

This is 15 pieces of barren parking lots, butterfly knives, hot air, rumbling amps, warm beer, STILLNESS, and—somewhere, far off in that empty bar you wish you lived in—the jukebox is playing the most golden of high-plains country. Only, there’s a flashflood coming; only, there’s a methed-out posse fixing to make some fool PAY; only, the power’s gone out, and we all gotta scramble around and look for a candle and—sffffhssss goes the match—and we see ours faces all orange-lit and smiling while the thunder booms down by the interstate. City of Refuge is Castanets. Castanets is Raymond Byron Magic Raposa.