tom carter
biography
Prior to his ongoing stint as part of Texan creative trio Charalambides, Tom Carter played guitar in the Houston grunt-psyche band The Mike Gunn. From there Tom Carter teamed up with his creative partner Christina Carter and they formed Charalambides. 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 Charlambides over the last decade plus would be an understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their work; to deny this of any artists 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.
The two Carters had a firm grasp of the haunting nature of American blues and country and a mastery of tape manipulation to add to Tom Carter's expansive guitar skills. In 1996 Tom and Christina Carter moved from Houston to Austin, Texas where they focused on their own record label, Wholly Other, releasing music from Ash Castles on Ghost Coast, Scorces, Charalambides, and Tom and Christina Carter's solo recordings, all as limited edition CDRs.
The re-release of Tom Carter's Monument by kranky is part of a series of re-issues the label are doing of Charalambides related music. Monument will be out in the UK in June 2004.