Charalambides 'Likeness'

artist: Charalambides
title: Likeness
catalog #: krank113
formats available: CD
release date: october 29, 2007

content: Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of "The Good Life", which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after 'record' was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing, and a malfunctioning space echo over the course of the next few months. Lyrical content largely derives from public domain American popular song from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, edited, rearranged, and largely deconstructed by Christina into abstract 'protest' songs for the century at hand. Musically, the album departs from the warm psych of A Vintage Burden in favor of the lush and layered vocal strata of Christina's later solo works, and a chillier, more abrasive guitar sound that favors the Velvets over the Byrds.  Though containing much of the compositional concision that gave A Vintage Burden much of its appeal, the sound here just as frequently turns the corner into the abstract echoing spaces that characterise the more discordant sounds of Charalambides at the dawn of their kranky residency.

context: Charalambides has been recording and performing live in various configurations since 1991. Originally a duo comprised of Tom and Christina Carter, Charalambides released a cassette called Our Bed Is Green on their own Wholly Other label in 1992. The two Carters showed a firm grasp on the haunting nature of American blues and country, as well as a mastery of tape manipulation, a disregard for genre boundaries, and a tendency towards vertically stacked guitar drone. Charalambides has released nearly two dozen albums in various lineups since then, and in late 2003 returned to concentrating on their duo work, fusing introspective, open-ended, and often spacious song structures with blasts of feedback and explosive sound often startling to fans familiar only with the band's deceptively low-key reputation.

track listing: 1. Uncloudy Day  2. Do You See?  3. Figs and Oranges  4. Memory Takes Hold  5. The Good Life  6. Saddle Up My Pony  7. Feather In the Air  8. Walking Through the Graveyard  9. What You Do For Money

quotes:
"This far into their musical careers, Tom and Christina Carter still sound as if they are still peeling back the layers of their souls, never completely defining who they are, which is good, as the music is still fresh and vital, not the sound of rehashed obsolescence." - Urban Pollution

"It would surely be possible to name check a few other rural space progenitors, but the references would be so arcane as to be ridiculous." - The Wire

"Charalambides are not suited for everyman’s record collection, but the netherworld they forge is a musical feast, a field of music that explodes finely, like the sparklers you burn in the heart of a summer night." - Stop Smiling

"With a sound that seems at once both spacious and intimate, Tom and Christina Carter showcase their seemingly innate ability to lock into a shared orbit across the darkening sky, their luminous drift scaled down to its essential, irreducible core." - Pitchfork

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