it’s a rare opportunity in kansas city to see artists who are readily and rightfully tagged as legends. charalambides is just such an act. the once-married duo of tom and christina carter began releasing music together with the our bed is green cassette in 1992, and through their own wholly-other label (as well as siltbreeze, foxy digitalis, kranky, and a host of others) have been a key and constant presence in the progression of other-worldly sound/texture music. neither have been afraid to venture beyond the bounds of charalambides, and often appear on their own or in collaborations with a wide variety of other artists.
compounding the excitement of the evening was the fact that another long-standing giant, tara jane o’neill, was the opening act. from her early days playing bass in rodan, to time spent in retsin, sonora pine, and her involvement in a number of significant collaborations, o’neil has been at the nexus of american underground rock for almost 15 years.
o’neil’s lyrics often dealt with love, but from the perspective of longing and separation. her words, voiced like a quiet angel and hidden behind a veil of hair, slipped between the layers of soft snow and dark night created by her quick fingers on the fretboard of her guitar. the joy of watching o’neil coax the elements of her work from her instrument was literally amplified when she was joined on stage for her last “jam” by tom carter, and, along with an assortment of on-and-offstage percussion, proceeded to destroy the serene calm of the previous thirty minutes. the massive psych-riffage which ensued was truly a thing of beauty and provided what must have been an incredibly powerful shock to those in attendance who should have probably been elsewhere last night . . . but more on that later.
following a brief intermission, charalambides took the stage. given the breadth of their catalog, i was unsure of what to expect from the band, who are performing on this tour as a duo. christina carter’s lovely voice soared and lulled over her rhythmic strumming like the seated sophia to tom’s standing, watchful original-god, coming together in a nature-cycle of creationism. if tara jane o’neil was the shy-but-misguided cherub, the carters were the king and queen incarnate. each sonic wave was produced right in front of us, yet as simple as it looked, stephanie and i both found ourselves lost in the complexity of their work. each song featured vocals in one form or another, and none ventured beyond several minutes in length. those of us who were there to see a double bill the likes of which does not often come through kansas city stood in enrapt awe as the couple moved through their set, which ended with o’neil joining them onstage (albeit hiding away in the back behind a small amp) and, as before, building the musical swells into crescendoing waves of raga-infused psych-blues drone/trance.
here’s a couple of video clips of the night as well: