Tag Archive: Christina Carter


CHARALAMBIDES EXILE

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October 2, 2011

I have never used the word in a real life conversation, but I can honestly say I am ‘stoked’ to hear that my all time favourite New Weird Americans, Charalambides are set to release a new album tomorrow on Kranky Records.

Exile comes four years since their last (Likeness) and marks twenty years of Tom and Christina Carter’s musical collaboration which has survived longer than their marriage.

Such is my enthusiasm that I’m even thnking of taking the unprecedented step of buying the 2LP vinyl version which contains two extra tracks.

According to Fluid Radio the album “drips authentically” and the Kranky blurb, promises “a tapestry of suppliant invocations directed at the heart of the unseen spiritual forces surrounding us”.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever experienced a ‘suppliant invocation’ when listening to their music but I am a huge fan of everything the Carters have put out either under the group name, as solo artists or in the numerous albums they have collaborated on.

I even set up a Last:fm group to see how many felt the same way. The answer is not many, judging by the low membership of, as I write  56,  but this is in keeping with their cult status.

Related links:
Exile reviewed at ‘Wears The Trousers
Exile album info on Brainwashed

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GENRE BENDERS

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June 26, 2008

spillers record shop

Musicians, like most artists, hate genre labels. Genres imply limitations and limitations imply restrictions. Artists like to feel they are free of restrictions; that their creativity should be constrained by arbitrary boundaries.

Journalists like genres because it enables them to classify and group artists to distinguish say a rock band from a soul group.

The wider the category the easier it is to make uncontroversial distinctions.

Few are likely to confuse rock music with opera, yet when Pavaroti performed with Elton John, should this be called pop, rock or opera. Is it a mongrel breed that needs another label – rock opera for example . But then that would put it in the same category with The Who’s ‘Tommy’ and ‘Quadrophenia’.

Record shops (ones that still survive!) place albums into sections on the grounds that a customer would otherwise have to sift through all the items to find music that they are looking for.

Even if you go into a store or want to browse online you don’t normally do so in a random way.

If you like Bob Marley you’ll look in the reggae section, if you like Son House you’ll go to The Blues, if you like Rihanna you’ll find her in Pop.

Most music magazines operate within limited genres, like Kerrang for heavy metal or Folk Roots for World Music. The Wire magazine prides itself in being different.

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MASQUE FEMINE: Christina Carter

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May 4, 2008

masqueChristina Carter was born in Houston, Texas in 1968, and in 1991 became the co-founder of the renowned free-folk group Charalambides. More recently she has pursued a fascinating parallel career as a solo artist and collaborator using voice, guitar (both electric and acoustic) and piano.

Christina utilizes the spare single guitar/voice form found in much of the group’s music. Her music is brave and spiritually transporting and she is really on a roll at the moment having released two quite amazing albums this year already – Masque Femine (Many Breaths Cdr) & Texas Working Blues (Blackest Rainbow, cassette).

The bad news is that both are extremely limited editions, the former with a run of 80 copies, the latter 200. This means you have to be quick of the mark if you want a physical copy.

The good news is that the excellent music blog Microphones In The Trees have done a major public service in providing download links to both these albums. They certainly deserve to reach a wider audience.

The beauty of these small scale releases is that they allow greater scope for experimentation and capture moods in a spontaneous way.

Quite what target audience Christina has in mind for these recordings is impossible to say and I suspect she doesn’t care too much. To make polished, technically perfect versions is unnecessary since there’s no commercial objective here.

The tunes are like a highly personal musical diary. Christina experiments with ways in which her voice can capture her feelings in their rawest state. Texas Working Blues (6t – 49.33) is more similar to her work with Charalambides while Masque Femine (16t – 34.05) is a stunningly original work – only three tracks have any instrumental content and these have only the simplest strummed guitar as backing. The result is such an intimate listening experience that I feel I’m trespassing into a very private space.

The tracks are chiefly song fragments, not so much cover versions as half remembered tunes dealing mostly with lost or unrequited love. It is such a quietly compelling record in which her voice often breaks or falters. She constantly sounds on the verge of tears and barely able to summon strength for each line. The emotionally charged intensity she conveys is absolutely breathtaking.

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The ghostly bliss of Charalambides

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October 29, 2007


Charalambides to me symbolise everything that is positive and innovative about the broad church of maverick outsiders, artists, musicians and hangers on grouped together under the New Weird America banner.

Originally from Houston, Texas they take their name form the surname of a Greek cusomer of the Record Exchange store where Tom & Christina Carter met. Although the Carter duo are no longer married (geographically seperated on the East & West coasts respectively) their close musical bond thankfully continues to flourish.

They are rightly heralded as one of the key bands of the Free-Folk movement even though they were in existence long before that label was coined by Matt Valentine in 2003.
Over the course of more than 20 releases, Charalambides have honed their sound into an openly expressionistic style that packs an emotional punch without resorting to clichéd rock riffs or false histrionics. In fact many of their tracks are barely identifiable as songs at all but instead have a blissful abstract quality which creates a mood of meditative calm. Set you controls for the heart of the soul if you will.
Their ‘official’ new release is on the ever reliable home of the drone label Kranky and a worthy follow up to the majestic ‘Vintage Burden’ of a couple of years back. This is certainly more accessible than Electricity Ghost – there even words you can hear particularly on the tracks ‘Good Life’ and Hitch Up My Pony’. The latter is their most lyrically expansive track to date with a kind of motorik beat tailored for horseriding rather that cruisng down the Autobahn. Needless to say, the lyrics are not of the “do it to me baby all night long” variety as we’re still very much out exploring on a higher plain.

 

 

 

 

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