CASTANETS TO RELEASE THIRD ALBUM

June 29th, 2007 , by

With their third record, In the Vines, Castanets have crafted a deeply psychological and intimate ten tracks of music. This album is perhaps the most haunting of their three, but also the most reassuring. Though In the Vines peers around corners and disappears from peripheral vision, we expect its shuffling and meandering will shadow listeners for a very long time. Inspired by a Buddhist fable, Ray Raposa completed the album just after three thieves mugged him outside his Bedstuy apartment in Brooklyn. And regular readers will recall that other thieves recently stole all of Castanets’ gear while on tour. That this album’s release is imminent is good news in a wake of bad.

Castanets will release the album in the middle of an appropriate season, autumn, on October 23, 2007. Jason Munn of the Small Stakes has delicately designed the cover art. We will be including a limited edition, embossed o-card with the first pressing.

Watch this space for tour dates and preorder information, and click here to go to the release’s page.

A RAFTER BLAST FROM THE SXSW PAST

June 26th, 2007 , by

Back in March, Rafter and whatever bandmates he could find (Chris Cory, Susanna Waiche, Ryan Severance, Future Rapper, and John Beeler) went into a borrowed studio to record some songs for the veritable Daytrotter, who has just posted them to their website. It’s now several months later, but the songs sound just as fresh. In fact, they’re so new that some of the tracks are from an album due out later this year! Others are from Music for Total Chickens – and Daytrotter recorded all with amazing skill and sound quality.

Click here to read Sean Moeller’s writeup, here to stream and download the mp3s, or here for a list of previous Asthmatic Kitty artists on Daytrotter.

CASTANETS GEAR STOLEN

June 24th, 2007 , by

Photo by twixx

The other night, someone stole the Castanets’ gear. If you have any information, or see their stuff show up on ebay, please contact us at info at asthmatickitty dot com. Because the band has received some offers of monetary help, they’ve set up a PayPal account to cover the costs of replacing the equipment. If you’d like to make a small donation, please send PayPal money to mutualincarnation at gmail dot com. If the money raised exceeds the cost of replacement, they will give the money to a charity.

Jana Hunter, who has been touring with Castanets, writes:

"So, the story is, last night we played in tucson at solar culture. afterward, we loaded our stuff up, went downtown, had a drink, and went to a house to crash on the floor. en route, we damaged a door, making it such that the door won’t close and such that eventually, before we return the vehicle to the rental company, we’ll have to pay on the order of 2 grand to replace the door.

seeing as how we had an unsecured vehicle, ray (castanets) slept in the van. sometime during the night, some brave soul(s) very quietly opened the back door and took what they could carry. we assume there were more than one of them given all the gear they managed to walk away with. we’re gathering what serial numbers we can, but in the meantime, here’s a rudimentary list."

Click more for total list and serial numbers. Thanks for your help.

JH gear-
fender classical guitar (ser.#9505151116)
new boss 20xl loopstation
boss reverb/delay pedal
original digitech whammy pedal
original b k butler tubedriver overdrive pedal
peavey 6 mixer (ser.#k0344300)
shure beta 98/s
custom flashlight circuit-bended thing

Castanets gear-
late 60’s blue fender music master guitar
line 6 delay pedal
boss tremolo
mutron volume/wah pedal
boss tuner pedal
digitech metal master
ebow
slides/cables

LAURA PARK SHOWCASED – AND SOLD OUT!

June 12th, 2007 , by

Laura Park, a frequent (and favorite) haunt of our Sidebar, is selling prints of "It Won’t Be a Stylish Marriage" tonight on Tiny Showcase, starting at 7pm EST. The good news is that the prints are a very affordable $20, and partial proceeds go to Operation Smile.

The bad news? There are only 100 of these available! The last time Laura showed up on Tiny Showcase, she sold out in minutes – and made Wired Magazine!

Click here to see the print in a large size, and be there at 7pm tonight! – Too late! They sold out!

CASTANETS QUIT DAY JOB

June 11th, 2007 , by

In an alternate reality, Ray Raposa has a surfing video game named after him. In this reality, he’s Castanets by night, and a record store clerk by day. In the Memorial Day edition of Stereogum’s "Quit Your Day Job" feature, Brandon Stosuy interviews our reality’s Ray. Click here to read.

SHAPES AND SIZES PROLIFERATE ACROSS GEOGRAPHY, INTERNET

June 9th, 2007 , by

Shapes are busily promoting their new album, Split Lips, Wining Hips, a Shiner by zig-zagging across the US-Canada border and the Internet. Caila has posted a tour diary of the Toronto-Chicago pilgramage on our sidebar, which you can read here. Philadelphia based Woodshop Films has posted a second video Shapes and Sizes’ "Can’t Stop That Sinkin’ Feeling, " viewable here (or here for their first video). No Love For Ned, whose internet archives hold a litany of in-studio recordings with accomplished musicians, has made their April session with Shapes and Sizes available here.

And finally, the Quebec Independent Music Awards have listed Split Lips as an album eligible for their Best Indie Rock Album award.  Once you register with the website, you can vote for your favorite album (Split Lips?) here.

WE SUPPORT THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN ORGANIZATION

June 6th, 2007 , by

At Asthmatic Kitty, we like it when people use art and culture to make the world better. Inspired by the film Invisible Children: Rought Cut, the non-profit organization Invisible Children is doing just that. They are dedicated to providing financial resources to invisible children by documenting their true, untold stories in a creative and relevant way, resulting in positive change. The documentary documents a war in Uganda in which children are abducted by a rebel army and forced to fight as child soldiers, but is has turned into a grassroots movement of youth around the world inspired to use their voice to change lives. Invisible Children currently employs 200 people in the war-torn area of Northern Uganda and is putting 560 kids through school, with plans to see that number grow. To find out more about the programs and to get involved, please go to www.invisiblechildren.com.

SUFJAN CONCEPTUALIZES THE BROOKLYN-QUEENS EXPRESSWAY

May 31st, 2007 , by

Photo by Denny Renshaw

On November 1, 2 and 3rd Sufjan will be pairing orchestrated selections of both new and old material with the 25th Next Wave Festival commission/world premiere of The BQE-a symphonic and cinematic exploration of one of New York’s least celebrated monuments: the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Robert Moses‘ controversial 11.7-mile roadway tears through neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens with the brute force of modern urban planning, and in Stevens’ hands becomes an evocation of the intersection of intimate experience and the American Dream. Merging a virtual road trip shot on film with a live band and orchestral ensemble, The BQE discovers abstract patterns and stories in the snaking traffic, potholed pavement, billboards, badly marked exits, and beautiful city views, revealing what happens when Manifest Destiny converges with urban blight.

SUFJAN ROUND-UP

May 30th, 2007 , by

There’s been a flurry of Sufjan-related content on the World Wide Web, not the least of which is the above video, but luckily you don’t have to go digging for it. We round it all up here, free of charge. Click on "more" to read.

If you neglected to attend the recent Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, you missed a series of amazing shows. Luckily, the king of online music video, La Blogothèque, did nothing of the sort, and while at the festival managed to coax a few of the participants into recording some video. Sufjan recorded two of them, one of which is edited together with the other musicians from Music Now, and the other performed on a blustery rooftop while covering the Innocence Mission (oh, they have a new album!).  Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond, elicits an especially clandestine sound from staircase and basement in her video. All three, and others just as beautiful, are available on La Blogothèque’s page. And for the next week or so, you can download them in high definition from that same page.

Sufjan has also recorded a new song for a 20-track strong compilation included with an upcoming issue of The Believer. You’d do well to pick up the issue (or even subscribe – it’s a dense but fascinating magazine), but if you’re far from a bookstore you can listen to the MP3 exclusively on Stereogum.

Finally, Sufjan recorded the first track on the recently released A Tribute to Joni Mitchell. He’s posted a sidebar entry on the process of capturing the spirit of Joni Mitchell’s "Free Man in Paris," which you can read here.

FUTURE RAPPER NOW PRESENT

May 30th, 2007 , by

Photo by Jonathan Dueck

Three years in the making, Land of a Thousand Rappers: Vol 1, The Fall of the Pillars, will land on August 7, 2007 via Asthmatic Kitty’s new imprint for conceptual and electronic projects, Unusual Animals. Future Rapper, aka Asthmatic Kitty’s own employee of the month Michael Kaufmann, has collaborated with The Holy Fool, aka Wayne S. Feldman, and the Queen of Soft, aka Liz Janes, as well as Papa Alabaster, aka producer Ero Gray, to construct a thickly layered avant hip hop album that integrates the vernacular of email spam with classic mythological themes of friendship, betrayal, and colony collapse disorder.

Expect more information, including downloadable MP3s, photos, and a powerpoint lecture tour schedule in the coming weeks.   Click here for the album’s webpage.

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