The songs of Ray Raposa mean so much more when you hear them too loud in a small lounge filled with dope smokers and summer innuendo.
On disc it's all often too dense, too much to comprehend beyond that voice and some instruments trying to reach you. Alone, with no drums, no harmonica Raposa becomes more emotionally credible.
The other night at a suburban cafe he played some of his songs and it doesn't particularly matter which ones I heard. He writes like Johnny Cash, only some things interest him - Raposa isn't a man of cars or politics. He'd much prefer to talk of ache and occurrence.
Listen to On Beginning for both.
"Dreams of something unending ... be straight with me, I'll be straight, straight with you."
His voice rolls over the gentlest of electronic swirls and a guitar so purposely gothic it could want you to know nothing else.
It matters that he shares his all-over sun burn after arriving in Australia a week before, it matters that he asks someone, anyone if they happen to have a guitar strap in their pocket. And then he plays without one, and without shoes.
The whole too loud thing is completely necessary. Each syllable of the very good lyrics pierce, each rough riding riff becomes a sort of wild horse coming onward, not something you want to dodge or control - a moment to just be attacked and stampeded by the unexpected noises.
Castanets is a request taking vendor but offers only "you motherfucker" in response to the one coming from the back, seems it's too difficult with only a guitar and four pedals to choose from.
A little before this a little band from Maine made me smile. Tiger Saw are quietly extraordinary. 100 plus members in a decade have said hello and goodbye. A book and a long discography come from it. If you can do more than nominate who exactly was playing the other night please let me know.
The songs at the moment are gentle, joyous and anthemic. Moments of singalong, times of almost silence and little crescendos.
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