(Indie, Folk, Blues) Raymond Byron (ex-Castanets) and The White Freighter - Little Death Shaker - WEB - 2012, FLAC (tracks), lossless

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Ray Raposa spent five records making music under the Castanets moniker, crafting strangely broken down folk records, albums with as much experimentation and soundscapes as it had down-in-the-dust, hard-scrabble songs. Raposa’s keen songwriting and creaky voice gave the songs personality and plenty of bittersweet emotion, but Castanets was always a thorny, difficult project to pin down.
His new band, which finds him renaming himself as well, is Raymond Byron and the White Freighter, and it proposes a return to basics. The groups first album, Little Death Shaker, is indeed more straightforward than most anything you heard from Castanets. It’s a collection of barroom blues and plainspoken folk and Americana that is less about experimenting with shape than it is about making its structures clear. These are, back to back, firmly built songs. From the gate, this shift, if a slight one, seems to suit Raposa. Opener “Allegiance” is a crunchy blues number, with big guitars jangling around Raposa’s trademark rasp. It’s a lively permutation of the isolated searching that informs much of Raposa’s songwriting – “I hit the street,” he says here, “upright and alone” – and for his part, the guy who always sounded powerful yet faint, never gets lost among these bigger sounds. As tangled as the guitars are here, his half-whispered voice is always heard.
Despite a focus on the songs themselves, the White Freighter is a band unafraid to stretch out into different sounds. The bouncy, organ pop of the title track is full of haunting backing vocals and clean guitar rundowns and far gauzier layers than “Allegiance”. “Some of My Friends” is a front-porch stomper and plays like the struggling musician’s anti-“Luchenbach, Texas”. “Some of my friends are selling 10,000, and some of my friends are still playing houses,” he tells us, and though neither are “the worst way to go,” by the song’s end “some of my friends got jealous of each other’s managers.” It’s a curious, darkly funny, but plainly true song, one of a few on the album that seem to present themselves as novelty, but hit at something deeper and more lasting. “You’ll Never Surf Again” feels silly at first as a doctor tells the narrator exactly what the title says, but as the song goes on, and that line comes back again and again, it’s clear this is no joke, that there was a freedom in surfing, a joy now lost. The finest moments of the record find Raposa taking conventions – like the novelty song or the weary road tune on “Turnpike/Bedsheet” – and making them both personal and often aching. So if White Freighter deals in clear songs, they also play with the expectations of those songs.
Part of this involved a roadhouse raggedness that permeates the entire record. Things feel loose, even off the cuff. The way Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck sings ovals around Raposa’s circular voice, the way the drums feel brittle and shuffling, the treble-light grit of the guitars – it makes the record feel wide-open and immediate, even frenzied in its own quiet way. Little Death Shaker, though, is not so much a whole new direction for Raposa as it is a new version of his old explorations. The guitars tones here all echo a unique and eccentric skronk. Raposa’s voice is still deeply buried in reverb, and as the album goes on, the songs themselves start to be more about their layers than the structures underneath them. The nearly 10-minute “State Line” is full of negative space, too much really, and Raposa’s vocals which get more and more drenched in fuzz as the song trudges along, obscuring itself in its own smudged atmosphere. “A Little More Credit”, earlier in the record, is a brief instrumental interlude, but its groaning feels too predetermined among these looser, livelier songs. And by the final track, “Allegiance 2” – which finds Raposa pleading, “oh Lord, be kind to me” – it’s almost all his voice, crackling with effects like a scratched record and impressionistic groans of instruments.
And so the blues-bad excitement of the rest of the record gets pushed aside in the records final third for more deathly spaces, spaces not unlike the ones we heard in Castanets. They present huge sonic terrains, but their terrains that sound like they were mapped out long ago, like they’re borders are perhaps far-off but sturdy, even over-thought in their construction. Little Death Shaker is exciting and surprising when it lets go a little, when the drums take off, when the guitars slice out chords and rattle off unruly leads, when Raposa leads the band through his broken-down American dream. We get to know this new performer, this Raymond Byron, on the new album, and he’s a charming talent, but he also hasn’t quite left behind that guy from Castanets just yet.
By Matthew Fiander
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Raymond Byron and the White Freighter isn’t the first musical incarnation of one Raymond Raposa, whose first release as Castanets in 2004, Cathedral, attests a solid history of folk and country influences with all the bells and whistles (metaphorically speaking) that Little Death Shaker lacks. As Castanets’ only real member, Raposa began mixing drum machines and guitars, playing off the electronic and the acoustic – the old and new – much like long-time Asthmatic Kitty label mate and fellow freak-folk champion Sufjan Stevens.
With many artists, deciding to perform under a new name can be a disconcerting sign of change for the worse. For Raymond Byron and the White Freighter, though, the name change seems entirely necessary. From Castanets’ first album to the 2009 Texas Rose, the Thaw, and the Beasts, Raposa has steadily phased out the “freak” in his freak-folk. His experimentation with noise, crackles, beeps and beats are over. Without any distraction by (or hiding behind) experimentation, Little Death Shaker rests on the precipice of his transition to confident bone-baring.
With the first few listens, the record cycles though pace and style like a country variety show; from the simple, swinging throwaway ditty of ‘Some Of My Friends’ to the drawn out ‘State Line’, a gritty jam that drags its feet through the dust and dirt. His closest musical relative in this regard might be Bright Eyes, who also manages to grasp that tangible sense of drama in the cycle of anguish and release.
You’ll have to dig a little deeper to find the easy celestial cresendos that Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros have built a career upon. Yes, there are some explosive choruses but these are sandwiched between songs of sombre meditation and love lost – the type of truly painful love songs that come without any cathartic relief. It’s for this reason Little Death Shaker won’t be the soundtrack to your next Kodak moment, or for that matter the soundtrack to the next Kodak advert. Instead it projects a more acute sense of virtuous reverence for life and the karmic nature of things – in a way that only a practised country outfit can – and all of this whilst managing to avoid the common pitfall of hollow mimicry. Its originality comes not from novelty but in fresh, solid song-writing. It runs through its emotional gamut with such ease that it would be difficult to highlight the two singles or one ballad often included in a template that even the very un-poppy artists seem to want to follow.
In a sense this is the only obvious criticism: that there aren’t any real singles. With the current trend for uplifting Americana, it’s almost a shame not to have that one big anthem that might cut through the air for the more casual listener. For all the potential raw power on the record, that Black Keys kick-in-the-gut chorus is just one verse too far away. Of course this could be considered a mark of restraint from a man who has all the right gear to pull it off, but with every other country and folk trope accounted for with aplomb – with the atmosphere set so perfectly for a sudden explosion of overdriven guitar- it does seem like a missed trick.
Little Death Shaker is the first notable record of late to avoid the pitfall that so often swallows up artists in this genre. A pitfall which, up to now Raposa had avoided through experimentation and diversions: painting an honest picture of the deep south and necessitating slide-guitar, banjo and harmonica without even the slightest sense of pastiche.
By Alistair Hardaker
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Little Death Shaker is the debut album from Raymond Byron & the White Freighter -- sort of. Raymond Byron is really Ray Raposa of San Diego's Castanets, and since that band featured a floating configuration of musicians and was always centered around Raposa's singing and songs, and since many of those same musicians are also present on this release, which is also centered around Raposa's singing and songs, Little Death Shaker is essentially a new Castanets album. There aren't any serious departures from Raposa's Will Oldham/Palace Brothers-styled dark, skewed, and eerie Americana here, either, although Raposa's songs on Little Death Shaker fall a shade to the more narrative side than the songs on his Castanets releases. It's all part of the same dark quilt. It's a wonderful quilt at times, though, and songs here like "Don't That Lake Just Shine," "Whipporwill," and "Stateline" are dark personal tales of desolation and a desperate search for redemption. At times they almost could pass for country, although they embrace a different kind of America, the kind one finds at all-night truck stops at 4 a.m. when all the dancing and drinking is over and there simply isn't anywhere else to go. That's the America Raposa inhabits in these songs, and it's the same place he's explored as the Castanets. Somehow it's comforting, if not exactly uplifting. Hope shines brightest in the darkest places.
by Steve Leggett
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Since Ray Raposa released his first full length album (Cathedral) with his band The Castanets in 2004, he has recalibrated the bands line up innumerable times and has released a further smattering of LPs. With a few years gap from his most recent Castanets album, Texas Rose, The Thaw, and The Beasts, Raposa is back under a new moniker, Raymond Byron and The White Freighter with their debut album Little Death Shaker.
Raposas new project isn't as new as you might think; the outfit consists of many of the same musicians he used during his time as The Castanets and the band revolves around Ray's songwriting and rasping whispers just as The 'Nets did. Where The White Freighter and Little Death Shaker do differ though is within the sound that inhabits this 15 song album. Where The Castanets specialised in swamp soaked psych-folk with a country hue; Raymond Byron and The White freighters debut's sound has a starkly blues vibe that rests underneath the folk/country sound Raposa has become renowned for.
Another way this debut takes a tangent from Raposas Castanets material is within its lyrical content; the songs on this debut take a more narrative route than on previous Castanets albums where minimalism and what was left out of the lyrics was more important than what was in them. In Little Death Shaker we see Raposa describing personnel tales of lonely ruin and the search for salvation and showing us a much more personnel album where he recalls to us his own stories. Songs like 'Dont That Lake Just Shine', 'Whippoorwill' and 'Stateline' follow these themes, helping to weave together the gloomy and eerie tapestry of Little Death Shaker and create a sound and aura that Raposa is so adept in making.
In contrast to the dark vibe that oozes from this debut, is a sense of humour that has been lacking within Raposa's previous work. This new dimension can be found on songs like 'Some of My Friends' and 'You’ll Never Surf Again' which flicker dubiously between happy and sad but remain humorous, most obvious being the punch line at the end of 'Some of My Friends'.
Little Death Shaker is a welcome departure from The Castanets, showing the musical diversity and creative spirit dwelling within Raposa, and although it isn't a complete departure from his previous work, it succeeds in showing a more personal, desolated and humorous side to his songwriting.
by Sam Willis
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“I woke up feeling bold as shit” sings Raymond Raposa on the opening track, Allegiance, re-introducing us to the world of an emotive American wanderer.
His most recent project, the first full-length under the name Raymond Byron & the White Freighter, encompasses several different genres, from Country and Americana to Roadhouse Blues and Rock.
Little Death Shaker’s nearly completely live recording transports you to a dive bar that could be somewhere in the Midwest or even in the Deep South, and something about it seems to be intrinsically American. Maybe it’s the playful lyrics or the refreshing sound of a raw recording. Or perhaps it could be the drunken and sinful indulgences that stain much of the set. Most measurably it’s Raposa’s lifestyle and experiences. At 15 he spent four years periodically drifting through North America on grey hound buses later followed by a brief stint as a telemarketer, both of which seem like rites of passage for today’s erratic youth. As Raposa graduates from the Castanets and on to this new project, it seems he too has come of age, and entered a new phase of adulthood.
Standout tracks include Some of My Friends, a cover of Dan Reeder’s You’ll Never Surf Again, and You’re Not Standing Like You Used To featuring Talia Gordon.
Overall, listening to the record is like a live music experience- transformative and transitive. There are moments where Raposa is at risk of alienating his audience with his jam sessions, as with the track Stateline (spanning an entire nine minutes and forty-three seconds), but overall it’s an album worthy of a dedicated listen.
by Rick Marcello
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The name Raymond Byron and the White Freighter might sound like a high-seas children’s fable, but Ray Raposa’s newest project is hardly fit for young ears. In this case there’s not much in a name: the Castanets frontman fills his songs with foreboding imagery and scummy characters throughout the frequently fatalistic Little Death Shaker. Indeed there are no kiddie tales to be found on this record, its collection of road-weary drifters, barroom seductresses and dead-of-night drivers leading rough lives worthy of Springsteen but minus any traces of dignity or noble intentions.
The album’s initial couple songs are spirited blasts of hard-edged Americana and rank among the most straightforward rock songs the Castanets’ founder has written. Opening track “Allegiance” is a crunchy rocker that showcases Raposa’s typically skewed humor. It’s a mixture of bravado and bruises: “I woke up feeling bold as shit/ A little sore and a little sick.” The title song is one of general sordidness; it’s easy to imagine that its combination of dingy bar/sexy girl/dead-end dude will end poorly for everyone involved. In his usual worn, dusty voice, Raposa sings with a sleazy sneer that suggests he’d be perfectly fine with that. The sedate and twangy “Some Kind of Fool” is just as nasty, its speaker giving a less than sincere, and borderline misogynistic, apology to the woman he’s clearly wronged.
Shaker’s tone becomes even darker and its scope more expansive as it progresses, starting with “Turnpike/Bedsheet,” a vividly written and utterly lonely travel song of wooded pines, desert sky and, of course, bars. Raposa likewise evokes this sense of distance and isolation on “Meridian, MS,” which slowly develops against a backdrop of steel guitar and piano. Small towns with names like Jackson, Clinton and Edwards roll by as we’re left to wonder who these two travelers are or why they’re fleeing. Raposa offers the listener just enough to imply disaster awaits: “Zero visibility/…Honey, here comes the storm,” he warns. The moody and sinister “Don’t That Lake Just Shine” and “State Line” are easily the tensest songs in the artist’s catalog to date, the former as mysterious and menacing as a traditional murder ballad and the latter a distortion-heavy nine minute road song jammed full of drugs, deceit, paranoia and inevitable reckoning. “We were trying to outrun/ What could not be outrun,” Raposa gruffly states.
An interesting pair of cover songs are included, the first a faithful rendering of Dan Reeder’s “You’ll Never Surf Again” – likely the bleakest and strangest surf song ever recorded – and Kate Wolf’s “You’re Not Standing Like You Used To,” sung by Talia Gordon and ostensibly an answer song for the asshole of “Some Kind of Fool.” It’s appropriate that the album ends with the sparsely arranged “Allegiance 2,” a prostrate whimper of a prayer from someone who’s discovered – probably too late – that his bastard behavior has finally caught up with him. Raposa has sometimes failed to reign in his idiosyncrasies in Castanets, but as a storyteller of a seedy, drunken and dimly-lit America, on Little Death Shaker he’s nothing short of exceptional.
by Eric Dennis