Calla is a trio from New York (originally, Texas) that plays a
softly hallucinated music reminiscent of Ry Cooder's soundtracks and
Red House Painters.
Singer Aurelio Valle, "programmers" Wayne Magruder
(a former Bowery Electric)
and keyboardist Sean Donovan
sculpted shadowy melodies
that slowly crept out of their fragile envelope.
The ambience of
Calla (Sub Rosa, 1999 - Arena Rock, 2004) is stark and stately.
Its funereal dirges are mostly content of repeating their own spleen.
The mood is framed by the Calexico-ain psychedelic drowsiness of the instrumental opener, Tarentula ,
and amplified by the depressed psychedelia of other instrumentals:
Truth About Robots , with its shrieking guitar,
June, with its wavering electronic hiss, lazy syncopated drums and pointless guitar doodling,
not to mention Keyes, that pares down the concept to a sustained
dissonance and distant drums.
Among real "songs", the gentle lullaby Elsewhere is the catchier and
warmer, followed by the pseudo-calypso of Trinidad.
The semi-tribal, twangy, sleepy Custom Car Crash finds an unlikely compromise between Ennio Morricone and Tom Waits.
Only Drowning Men, after a four-minute instrumental overture of sketchy guitar tones and looping electronic patterns, moans a few slow, bluesy lines while the guitar erects a wall of noise a` la Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man.
Awake and Under
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Milena Ferrante)
I Calla
sono un trio di New York (di origine Texana) che suona una musica mollemente
allucinata che ricorda le colonne sonore di Cooder e le ballate ambient di
Mark Lanegan. Aurelio Valle, voce, e i“programmatori” Wayne Magruder e Sean
Donovan (che costituiscono la sezione ritmica) del progetto, modellano
nell’eponimo Calla (Sub Rosa, 1999) melodie irreali che strisciano
lentamente fuori dal loro fragile involucro. Tarantula Custom Car
Crash June Only Drowning Men Truth About
Robots
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Scavengers (Young God, 2001), instead, has too much filler.
While songs like Fear of Fireflies float in the same melodic ether
of Bedhead, the core of
Calla's slo-core
(the lengthy Hover Over Nowhere, Tijerina, The Swarm)
is spacey and subliminal, not merely atmospheric,
halfway between
Godspeed You Black Emperor and
Low.
Custom (Quatermass, 2002) is a terrible remix album.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Claudio Vespignani)
Scavengers (Young God 2001) invece, contiene troppi riempitivi. Mentre brani come Fear of fireflies
fluttuano nello stesso etere melodico dei Bedhead, l'anima dello slo-core dei Calla (le lunghe Hover over
nowhere, Tijerina, The swarm) e' spaziale e subliminale, non soltanto atmosferica, qualcosa a meta' fra i
Godspeed you black emperor e i Low.
Custom (Quatermass, 2002) e` un orrendo album di remix.
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Televise (Arena Rock, 2003) marks a return to form, although the
brilliance of the debut album is still diluted in too many half-baked songs.
Aurelio Valle's delivery helps several songs
(the melancholy Don't Hold Your Breath,
the sinister Strangler,
the throbbing Monument
the neurotic Televised)
sound derivative of depressed post-punk rock of the 1980s (e.g., dark-punk),
but Calla maintains a grip on its identity as an atmospheric combo
devoted to cathartic self-vivisection.
Tenecke was Wayne Magruder's solo project that on
Block Terrain (k2o, 2002) specialized in
Tackhead-style industrial music.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Luca Battistini)
Televise (Arena Rock, 2003) segna il ritorno dei Calla a buoni
livelli, sebbene la brillantezza del
debut album sia ancora diluita in troppe canzoni riuscite solo a meta'.
Aurelio Valle aiuta diverse canzoni
(la malinconica Don't Hold Your Breath,
la sinistra Strangler,
la pulsante Monument,
la nevrotica Televised)
ad assomigliare ad un derivato del post-punk rock depresso degli anni 80 (ad
esempio, il dark-punk),
ma i Calla mantengono il controllo sulla loro identita' di gruppo
d'atmosfera
devoto ad una auto-vivisezione catartica.
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Collisions (Beggars Banquet, 2005) was influenced by the
aching sensitivity of Coldplay,
which became just a bit edgier in the hands of Calla's vocalist
(This Better Go As Planned, So Far So What).
The effervescent Swagger and the mildly psychedelic Stumble
were the notable exceptions to a rather formulaic album of alt-rock
a` la mode.
Strength In Numbers (Beggars Banquet, 2007) is either too intellectual
for its own sake or too casually improvised. The result is a set of songs
that seem like distractions rather than attractions,
and only mildly related to the original Calla sound.
Their atmospheric and moody noise-rock has been evolving in too many directions,
none of them decisively seizing power.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx)
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