Castanets vs. Ero
Dub Refuge
Rating: 3.5
Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Unless you’re well-paid, the process of editing music requires a certain kind of unconditional love. It’s a good thing Ero Gray, according to his Web site, produces “other folks’ music for love.” While Castanets City of Refuge is one of the more affecting releases of the year, the album requires patience; you have to be willing to keep quiet, and you have to be okay with being upset. If Raymond Raposa’s album is what despair in the desert sounds like, then Gray’s version, Dub Refuge, is what that same despair sounds like when it echoes and thumps inside your lonely, parched skull.
After Raposa brought his raw material out of the desert, Gray did what he called “unobtrusive fiddling” with a “serious Nevada death drip.” While he was buffing Refuge, Gray was also crafting his own interpretation. At first, I wasn’t sure why I’d need a dub version of a minimalist, experimental-folk record. But after awhile, after both versions of Refuge morphed into one sleepy, rippling soundscape, the answer became, “Why not?”
Editors frequently spend too much time with other people’s art. When you’re charged with something as intensely personal as Raposa’s album, it’s difficult to remain uninfluenced. The editor in Ero Gray didn’t really have a choice but to make some of Refuge’s suffering his own. He acknowledges some of the pain and pushes it octaves deeper, and there are other times he doesn’t quite accept it–but these moments are not so much a helping hand as they are a canteen sprinkled on the sufferer’s face.
For example, “Dub Savage” doesn’t allow the “savage” label at first–from what we know of him, I think we can all agree that it’s hard to imagine a savage Raposa. Gray removes the word from the end of each phrase, forcing brief positivity: “I dreamt I was. / Someday I am. /Today I am.” This isn’t the only time on the record that Gray suggests a different mood. Refuge’s “Prettiest Chain” becomes “Dub Vulture Chain,” as Gray realizes there’s no need for any aesthetic in this environment. “Give me your prettiest chain to wear / A bracelet made of your finest hair” becomes “Give me your / chain / Your finest” suggesting something even more damning along with all the original self-loathing. Likewise, the steady, ambling spaghetti-western strum is absent from “The Dubstroyer” (formerly, “The Destroyer”). Only the ominous bass, far-off metallic rattle, and bent notes remain; they create the soundtrack of tense anticipation heard just before a pistol crack.; “The Dubstroyer” rides through much of this album, occasionally removing melody and laying down skeleton beats in his wake of destruction and reconstruction. I wonder, though, if the dub anti-hero is too irreverent with some titles, which are among the lovelier tracks. The traditional “I’ll Fly Away” becomes “I’ll Dub Away,” bluesy “Shadow Valley” becomes “Dubby Baby,” and “After the Fall” becomes “After Dub Fall” (which shouldn’t be said out-loud).
Gray says that he respects Raposa’s “unique dedication to risk,” and he shares “his reverence for accident in folk music. (Stray string squeaks, cracking voices and odd echoes can be more rewarding than intentional harmonies or suavely competent riffs.)” When I had my volume cranked-up, I found one of these string squeaks in the first track, which becomes “Celestial Dub.” Gray adds an extra minute to his version, and might have used the squeak as inspiration for the fuzzy, shimmering effects in the second half. Sometimes Gray leaves us with more than what was initially there, though he shortens the lengths of the tracks. I like what he does with the three “Plain” dubs, which seem to ask for a beat and are largely vacant except for what resembles electronic birds, insects, and vehicles. Gray’s versions become even earthier when he turns on the wind and water.
The subtleties in this album are what impress me, as well as Gray’s humble technique. In comments about the album, he is slightly concerned about whether or not his attempt “works.” He wanted to impart the “warmth” of the classic dub sources he’s fond of, but didn’t expect to end up with something that sounded like classic dub. I’ll agree with that, but I think he stayed true to its manifesto. He found the main ideas of Refuge, highlighted them, and added just enough of the bodily pulsing that separates dub from not-dub–as if the poor sufferer of Refuge needs to be reminded that it’s not only his psyche that’s in pain.
by Caren Scott
