Christina Carter

biography
Christina Carter first joined Tom Carter and Kyle Silfer in an unnamed trio in 1991 that became a duo called Charalambides . That group went on to become a singular entity that has constantly defined itself by gripping music and an operation outside the parameters of the music industry. Beginning with self-released cassettes, then moving on to the Siltbreeze label in 1993, Charalambides garnered attention from those in the know with their unique mix of noise, gospel, folk and blues.

Jon Dale wrote in Signal to Noise that

"For more than a decade, the trio have continually re-defined an attitude towards music-making that's about capturing the emotional and spiritual intensities of the moment, working from within skeletal song-forms and expanding outward through improvisational tactics and psychedelic sound-mapping to reach an ideosyncratic space of pure heart-to-heart communication."

Operating their own label, Wholly Other, Tom and Christina Carter have released music by themselves, Charalambides as well as friends' bands and collaborative efforts. Wholly Other utilizes short run CD-R releases to capture the spontaneity of live and improvised music-making and to keep inventory at a minimum and flexibilty at a maximum.

As Christina told Word in April 2004;

"We developed the belief that it is a good thing to know how to take care of things yourself, take initiative, know the whole process from beginning to end... In our minds the short runs weren't so short. When we were gettings CDs and CDRs made for us by an outside manufacturing place we were making enough to sell through in a good amount of time. Then we could move on to the next release without having a bunch of extra copies sitting around."

Christina had worked with Heather Leigh Murray in a duo called Scorces, and by 2000 Murray had joined Charalambides for a tour and eventually a series of recordings that would culminate in the Joy Shapes album released by kranky in spring 2004. Christina Carter had worked on numerous solo recordings, using guitar and voice recorded in the simplest manner possible. Living Contact is a compendium of those self-recordings made between breaks in Charalambides activity. Originally released in an edition of 100 CDRs by Wholly Other, this stunning recording is being released by kranky as a part of the reissues program that includes Tom Carter's Monument CD and the Charalambides Unknown Spin album. Living Contact is more than a history lesson or an exercise to see what happens when Christina is subtracted from the group setting. The acoustic guitar playing and singing stand on their own as riveting music. Placed directly in front of the listener, this music stands on its own.

Christina Carter and Tom Carter are no longer married and live on the east and west coasts, respectively. Heather Leigh Murray is living in Scotland. Charalambides continues as the duo of Christina and Tom and the group will be playing out and recording together in the future. Christina's plans for late 2004 and early 2005 include a European tour with Black Forest/ Black Sea, a CD-R on the Irish Deserted Village label, a cassette release on the Finnish Invited Out imprint, a split release with the Italian band My Cat is an Alien and books of poetry on Slow Toe Press from Cleveland and a self-released book of poetry called Many Breaths.

kranky titles available
Original Darkness
Electrice
Living Contact

external links
Wholly Other - www.wholly-other.com