Kranky
2006
A Vintage Burden
About This Album
Anybody looking for the physically visceral side of Charalambides -- as was displayed at Terrastock 6 -- should listen elsewhere. Vintage Burden is a collection of quietly psychedelic minimal guitar and vocal songs. It is among the most tender, fragile, and spiritually savvy records out there, and coming as it does from the undisputed parents of the acid folk subculture (can't call it "underground" anymore; it's too popular), that's saying something. Christina Carter has always been a skeletal poet in her lyrics, one to ask questions without worrying about answering them. The set opens with "There Is No End," a metaphysical meditation on the eternal on which Christina and Tom Carter play guitars that are so steady, slowly developing, and ever present that they sound like loops. There is a strange love triangle afoot, one that is existential and spiritual, one that is physical, projected, and yearned for, and perhaps dismissed. "Spring" has slippery, whisperingly bright textures of detuned guitar and lap steel, with Christina's vocals just hovering there, framing it all and asking for motion, for exploration, for the step in faith to encounter mystery and magic beyond death and grief.
Track List (try tracks 1,2 and 3)

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