Sunday, June 17, 2007

Carta


Carta began as a bedroom recording project in 2002 by Kyle Monday, Jason Perez, and a revolving door of San Francisco musicians. Ambient instrumental songs developed organically from looped guitar melodies, which also served as metronomes in the absence of a drummer. As members joined and left, the desire to perform the songs in another setting arose, so the duo formed a band with bassist Ray Welter and drummer Sonny Culbertson and honed a set of material for live shows, including some songs with vocals (supplied by Sarah Bell).

In 2005 the band began recording the album "The Glass Bottom Boat" with engineer Eli Crews (of Elephant 6 band Beulah). The album features contributions from keyboardist Jared Matt Greenberg and bassist Sacha Galvagna (both of Charles Atlas), and cello by Alexander Kort (of the band Subtle).

After recording the album, Carta returned to a small lineup, and Kyle began working closely alongside Sacha and percussionist Raj Ojha on a long-form composition meant to invoke the slow sinking of the boat referenced in the title of the first album. The new piece, 'le bateau de descente', will be finished by Carta in 2007.

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