Tom and Christina Carter of Charalambides talk to Popcorn Youth
Published by Natasha June 28th, 2007 in Music, Interview.
(Note: This is from the article that originally appears in this week’s Ithaca Times. Check back soon for the complete transcript of our conversation with Tom and Christina Carter in our interviews section as well as photo galleries from the Soundlab show.)
Charalambides has been making experimental music that excels for the last 15 years, but has remained curiously under the radar. A recent show at Buffalo’s Soundlab proved that Charalambides is now, more than ever, a uniquely dynamic musical force. Tom and Christina Carter, the duo behind Charalambides, are prolific artists — both have acclaimed solo projects, side projects, and collaborations — but their most recent output, including last fall’s gorgeous A Vintage Burden and 2004’s haunting Joy Shapes, shows them at their finest.
When we met with Charalambides shortly before last month’s Soundlab show, they exuded the low-key Texas charm of their previous homes, Austin and Houston. These days, however, Tom and Christina now reside in Oakland, California, and Northampton, Massachusetts, respectively. Over the years, Charalambides has garnered an almost mythical reverence, but they are quick to dismantle this notion. “We try to demythologize ourselves as much as possible,” Tom laughs.
Self-deprecation aside, it would be hard to quantify just how significant Charalambides’ impact has been on the recent avant-garde American musical community — their collaborators and friends include Loren MazzaCane Connors, Sonic Youth, Jandek and Robert Horton — and though Charalambides is frequently dubbed a “folk” or “psychedelic” act, those labels undermine the sonic complexity and depth of their compositions. “We try not to place the reverence onto a sound, attitude or time period,” Christina explains. “It’s not about recreating something, but making it your own.”
Their latest offering, a studio album due this October, is inspired by late 19th-century American folk songbooks. “It’s an effort to juxtapose that tradition with what we do,” Tom explains. “And as such, it is a reaction against the perception of us as a folk act. It’s like, ‘Well, we’ll take actual folk sources and make them ours!” The Charalambides songs will bear no relation to the songbooks, which serve more as a “found language” or source matter, rather than a simple inspiration — no effort is made to “cover” anything, and they are adamant about this point.
Having recently returned from a 19-date European tour — remarkably, their first “real” overseas tour ever — the duo remain self-aware. “One thing just unfolds into another. I think I take a lot of things for granted, but then later I take a step back and think, ‘Wow.’ When it’s all happening, you can’t really be sitting there thinking, ‘Wow, this is crazy!’” Christina laughs. “For me, at least, it is a survival mechanism. You have to be there, and just do it.”
The duo has many releases on labels such as Eclipse, Timelag and Siltbreeze, but these days, Charalambides continues to release music on the Chicago-based label Kranky as well as their own label, Wholly Other. They thrive on spontaneity, free improvisation and openness. “To me, every record is an unexpected experience — something will come out of it that I didn’t really know I could play or pull off. And hopefully that will continue to be the case,” Tom laughs.
Their canon — which includes numerous small-run CD-Rs, cassettes, vinyl and CDs — is ever-mutating. While previous works have explored the realms of psychedelia, blues, country, with elements of free improvisation and a relentlessly open approach to form, the latest Charalambides incarnation — quiet, vocal-heavy and spacious — embraces a deceptively traditional song craft.
Over the years, their approach has remained resolutely DIY. “I definitely identify with taking it into your own hands — you don’t have to have a certain amount of people that a band would need, you don’t have to have a certain type of equipment,” Christina says.
Although both play guitar (the duo, which once featured pedal steel player Heather Leigh Murray, has never had a rhythm section), Tom is considered the more technically trained guitarist. Christina, who has no formal training with any instrument, freely admits that she was initially intrigued by musical experimentation because conventional musical skill did not seem to be a prerequisite. “Honestly, I think [my interest] came out of not really being able to play in the traditional way,” Christina says. “And then we started playing together, and Tom can play that way. So we just arrived at wherever those two things met.”
Similarly, Tom has long embraced unconventional music. “From the moment I was listening to weird music, I wanted to play it. There was only the question of how or what I was going to do,” Tom laughs.
Charalambides has now been playing together since the early 90s, and the duo has seen some powerful changes in the American experimental world. Most notably, Christina, herself an inspiration for many young female musicians, has witnessed a blossoming of feminine presence within the predominantly male avant-music world.
“Although this wasn’t the case for a long time, in the past five years in the United States it’s been extremely rare to play a show and be the only woman,” Christina says. “It’s completely open now. I’ve been thinking about it recently, and I do see a huge difference from when we first started, and it’s pretty great. We’re equals — it’s not even a question anymore.” At Soundlab, Charalambides’ opener was the drone duo GHQ, led by noise innovator Marcia Bassett (Bassett also collaborates with Tom as Zaika), who also plays in Double Leopards, Zaimph, and Hototogisu.
Live at Soundlab, their performance provided yet another perspective on the enigmatic Charalambides style. Controlled yet passionate, Charalambides achieved a raw intensity that is rarely seen on their comparatively restrained records, and Christina’s powerful vocal performance (she played no guitars here) left us feeling naked.
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