Clavius Productions presents what might be the show of the year at 611 Florida. Even the Washington City Paper picked it:
As Charalambides, Tom and Christina Carter peddle a hypnotic brand of folk music that gently loops, folds, and eats away at sound in ways that can boggle the imagination. More simply put, they make folk music for people who love Sonic Youth. Thereâ??s a sense of foreboding to the music thatâ??s nearly palpable, yet it manages to attain a certain beauty: Past releases, most notably 2004â??s
Joy Shapes, have been exercises in the expressive potential of carefully controlled drone, washes of reverb, and calculated finger-picking. The duoâ??s most recent album,
A Vintage Burden, feels positively upbeat by comparison; while still lyrically dismal, the Carters seem to be opening up their sound and exploring the potential of major chords. Charalambides performs with Volcano the Bear, Kohoutek, and the Cutest Puppy in the World at 8:30 p.m. at 611 Florida Ave. NW. $5. (202) 360-9739. (Peter Hepburn)
And Philly's Temple of Bon Matin will try to squeeze in a set as well! This will also be Kohoutek's last DC show for a few months. BYOW...
Charalambides http://home.flash.net/~whother/ To say that the words "unique" and "singular" are over-used in describing music is to state the obvious. To apply these words to the sounds created by the various duo/trio configurations of the Texas group Charalambides over the last decade plus would be understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their music; to deny this of any artist's work would be akin to saying that they are deaf. But they have surely broken new ground in the primitive/folk/mystic/improv/psych valley in which they toil. As Marcus Boon wrote in The Wire; "...here is a truly 21st century experimental ethnic music that explores quietness and stasis... in the same way that musicians in the second half of the 20th century discovered amplification, noise and speed."
Originally a duo comprised of Tom Carter (who had been playing guitar in the Houston grunt-psych band The Mike Gunn) and Christina Carter, Charalambides released a cassette called
Our Bed Is Green on their own Wholly Other label in 1992 (later reissued on CD and double LP). 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 marked tendency towards vertically stacked guitar drone. A full length album called
Union was released by the Siltbreeze label, and many other releases followed, both as a duo and trio (first with Jason Bill, and later with pedal steel player Heather Leigh Murray). Although better known as a trio through their various tours with both Heather and Jason, Tom and Christina have returned to concentrating on their duo work in more recent years, 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.
In 2005, Tom and Christina met in California to record the tracks for their new kranky CD,
A Vintage Burden. Besides commemorating the return to the duo format, the album represents a culmination of the threads of repetition and psychedelic song that run through much of the duo's work Although partially an homage to the clarity and ambience of 60s and 70s production and songwriting, the album retains the spook, space and mystery of even their most extreme releases: "Tom and Christina Carter here again 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." (quote from Pitchfork).
Tom and Christina are planning several tours of varying durations through the rest of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 (and beyond). Despite being a duo, their live sound achieves an energy and ferocity not often glimpsed on their releases, while maintaining the hissing delicacy of their most haunting studio work.
Christina Carter: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, voice
Tom Carter: electric guitar, lap steel guitar, acoustic guitar
Volcano the Bear http://brainwashed.com/vtb/ Volcano The Bear are an improvisational/experimental British band formed in Leicester in the mid-1990s. They are currently comprised of Aaron Moore (drums, trumpet, vocals), Nick Mott (saxophone, guitar, vocals), Clarence Manuelo (tapes, electronics) and Daniel Padden (keyboards, guitar, clarinet, vocals). Although the principle roles of each member as as listed, the group use a large array of additional soundmaking objects to create their music.
Their early work was characterised by theatrical live performances and unconventional recording methods; for example
The One Burned Ma, their second full-length album, contains no tracks on which all four members appear. Having self-released a handful of cassettes and CDRs, they came to the attention of Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, who revived his United Dairies imprint to release
The Inhazer Decline, their first full-length album. However, a proposed collaboration with Nurse With Wound was not completed. They continued to release regular live CDRs on their own Volucan imprint and later albums such as
Five Hundred Boy Piano and much of
The Idea Of Wood were performed live in the studio.
A hiatus in group activity occurred in the early part of the 2000s with Mott and Moore reviving their pre-Volcano the Bear unit Songs Of Norway. Manuelo created an album and EP as Earthtrumpet. Padden founded The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden, initially a solo project later expanding to a quartet, with Chris Hladowski, Peter Nicholson and Aby Vulliamy. Moore has recently drummed for The Nightingales, formed Dragon or Emperor with occasional VtB collaborator Stewart Brackley and released
The Accidental, a solo album upon which he collaborated with Alex Neilson and Andrew Liles. Volcano the Bear have recently performed live as a quartet for the first time in four years, followed by many other live gigs around the UK and Europe. In early 2006 they released a double album called
Classic Erasmus Fusion to excellent reviews. They will shortly be issuing a further vinyl-only album on Volucan. (from Wikipedia)
Temple of Bon Matin http://www.multiultramedia.com/muteantsounds/temple/home.htm Influence: Sun Ra, Harry Parch, Exuma, Judas Priest, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cow, Sodom, Can, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart, DMX
History of Temple of Bon Matin: Born in Florida in 1963, Ed Wilcox lived around the world before attending The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated with honors in 1985. He worked in scenery design for theater, ballet and TV. In 1992 he tossed aside a promising career in art and took on drumming, singing and leading Temple of Bon Matin as well as playing with legendary saxophonist Arthur Doyle, punk rock legend Mikey Wild, the Strapping Fieldhands, Jim Shepard & V-3, Laundry Room Squelchers and Velocity Hopkins. Citing Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Ted Parsons and Martin Atkins to name a few as his favorite drummers, Ed has a drumming style all his own. Flailing arms, crashing cymbals and gongs, pounding bass -- all on a drum set that looks to be designed by Peter Max and a group of rouge arc welders, Ed is a show in his own right. Ed first teamed up with John Mulvaney to record the first Temple album and lay the blueprint of what was to come. At the time only a two-piece, they covered prog avant-garde territory reminiscent of Soft Machine and Sun Ra. Ed teamed up later with Trevor Dixon and Mark Lux to record the highly acclaimed
Thunder, Feedback and Confusion album. Released in 1993 by Siltbreeze records this album even more so defined the sound and style of Temple. Loud, noisy psychedelic rock that destroyed hearing and broke boundaries. The trio played shows extensively in their hometown of Philadelphia and the surrounding area causing a stir as well as a few eyebrows to be raised to the fact that psychedelic rock wasn't dead. 1995 saw the release of Temple's debut on Bulb Records,
Enduro, America's Most Loudness. The players were Frank Bradley (guitar), Mark Denardo (Bass), Rich Lamb (Bass), Angelo Madrigale (Drums) and Ed (Drums and Vocals). The music primal and grating, feedback-soaked loops of pure sonic comfort. The best description "Merzbow meets L.A. Guns" or "America's High Rise." With Temple's growing notoriety as "America's Most Loudness" the band began to see some recognition for their efforts by the means of college radio play, rave reviews in zines and a now-constant flux of shows spreading further away from the Philly homebase.
Bullet in2 Mesmer's Brain was released in 1997 again on Bulb Records. The lineup changed once again, not getting stale, Temple displayed an avan-jazz feel, with live and studio tapes cut up and stuck together giving the record a bit of a hyperventilated, vertigo swirl. Perfomers were Charles Cohen (synths), Elliot Levin (sax and flute), Linda Searnock (guitar), Joe Z.(bass), Rick Brackbill (guitar/turntables), Steve Buchanan (guitar and sax), Greg Chapman (synths), the return of John Mulvaney (synths) and of course Ed being Ed. This is free jazz!! Over the next couple of years many new faces came and went through the turnstiles that is T.O.B.M. A lot of shows and roads were traveled. What do you get when a room full of musicians from different walks of life with different tastes who never played together are conducted by Ed Wilcox?
We've Got The Biggest Engine released in 1999 by Little Army Records is the answer. Too many musicians to list but Ed pulled it all together, putting yet another spin on what the world knows as Temple of Bon Matin. More shows more noise...Then in 2001 Cabin in the Sky, a Bulb Records limited-edition vinyl pressing. Folky-art-noise-rock, showing a newer down-home sound to Temple's ever-eclectic array of styles. 2004 brought a new album and new label behind T.O.B.M., the album
Infidel was released on Spirit of Orr records. A grittier, space/punk voodoo ritual including a whole different line-up of various musicans and guest musicans than before.
Infidel is earning the respect of critics, college radio and fans worldwide. Temple of Bon Matin are in the process of recording yet another album at the Runnemede N.J. studio that has produced almost all previous albums. Stay tuned for the future...
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Upcoming 611 Florida events:
12/2: Peter Wright (Last Visible Dog, New Zealand drone)/Antony Milton (New Zealand)/Insect Factory/Callers (Providence folk/psych duo)
1/12: Northern Valentine (PA ambient drone a la Landing/Windy & Carl/Flying Saucer attack)/PD Wilder (of Austin's Hotel, Hotel)/Insect Factory
2/15: Micah Blue Smaldone (Maine ragtime picker)
