Castanets was an experimental one-man band from San Diego composed of Raymond Raposa and any number of session musicians brought on for his albums and performances. The music has been described as gothic country, avant-garde indie, psychedelic neo-folk, and a slew of other labels. Fundamentally, the music of Castanets is built on the clash between traditional music styles (folk, country) and modern intuition (avant-garde, psychedelia). For several years, Raymond spent his time traveling the USA by bus and distributing CD-R copies of his music. Castanets has since released two albums, 2004's Cathedral and 2005's First Light's Freeze, both on Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label. On July 29, 2022, Raymond Raposa died at the age of 41 of undisclosed causes.