Scavengers

Calla | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 16, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Young God Records
• ASIN: B0000589BU
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,987 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Fear Of Fireflies

2. Hover Over Nowhere

3. Traffic Sound

4. Tijerina

5. Slum Creeper

6. The Swarm

7. Mayzelle

8. Love Of Ivah

9. A Fondness For Crawling

10. Promenade

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Calla's debut album was a striking blend of gutbucket riffs and sonic abstraction, standard rock instrumentation and electronic programming, big guitars and subtle ambient detailing. Scavengers, the New York-based threesome's second CD, is less intriguing than the first disc, but it's still compelling. Calla certainly craft fine melodies but their first concern seems to be sound itself. Guitarist Aurelio Valle, whose playing draws from dirty blues and Morricone soundtracks, is a master of tone and inflection. He can animate the simplest guitar parts with subtle inflections. That's one reason the group can pull off something like "Hover over Nowhere," a track in which the song gets left behind, only to be followed by a lovely and lengthy coda. Layering vocals on top of catchy guitar, "Tijerina" displays the group's taste for dramatic grandeur. Scavengers (which was coproduced by Michael Gira) is a solid variation on the band's first CD. It'll be interesting to see where the group goes from here. --Fred Cisterna

Product Description

Calla are from Texas, and moved to NYC a few years ago. The music is slow and slinky, with deep bass and lots of space and atmosphere. The grooves have a swampy, narcotized-Cajun feel, with hollow-body-twang guitar that snakes and erupts through the mix with signature lines - Morricone-like sometimes, but more authentically American - very bluesy, dramatic, and spacious. They use some electronic textures and grooves, too, very tastefully and not gimmicky, just enough to convey a sense of dimension and filmic atmosphere. The vocals are softly intoned and tender, but right up front in the mix. The songs convey a sense of heartbreak and vulnerability, with just enough abstract remove to avoid mawkishness. The tone of the album is very purely conveyed though, without irony. The sense of ache I get from their music reminds me of Low, but they get at this sensation through entirely different means and don't sound anything like them. These are extremely well written and orchestrated songs, with a wide range of dynamics (bordering on the theatrical) - from a close whisper to austere and repetitive "rock" vamps that are always rooted with a disciplined low-end groove, avoiding overkill as they build towards crescendo. They draw on traditional elements and filter them through an advanced sensibility - via the electronics, sense of space, their (sometimes) minimalist aesthetic, and the unconventional, cinematic, sonic juxtapositions. - Michael Gira

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Low Key Metamorphosis, March 16, 2001

By 

Dirk Hugo (Cape Town, South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scavengers (Audio CD)

What sets Calla apart from other brooding post-rock outfits (Idaho, Red House Painters, Low et al) is not so much the arrangements, instrumentation or the presentation of their material, but rather the way in which their songs are structured. Beyond the verse-chorus concept lies a gradual shift in theme and mood, drifting in and out of more abstract instrumental passages. This is a much more subtle take on the cut-and-paste ethic which contemporary culture has embraced over the last decade or two: time-stretched and layered instead of the more jarring and schizophrenic methods employed to date. Although superbly textured, on first listen this album may well sound featureless and indistinct, but a little perseverance reveals a refreshingly different pop sensibility, one which brings to mind the finest moments of The Velvet Underground.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet Storm, August 5, 2002

By 

hush lush (Orbit, Sector 9) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scavengers (Audio CD)

With all that is mundane in a senseless music industry there comes a time when a album comes about that makes one sit down and listen, listen to it for what it's worth. Every cling of the guitar, swoosh of atmosphere pushed out by methodical drummming, bass lines that bleed narcotics, and a voice that could gently whisper you pains which, till then, you never knew existed. All this is intrinsic to this album with nothing more and nothing less. This album is good and the music is stunning to the point in which I asked myself "What is this other stuff I've been listening to?"... :)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elcellent mellowing-out album, May 19, 2002

By 

Patrick Roberts (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scavengers (Audio CD)

This is a great ablum. I've had it for a couple of months and have listened to it probably at least 20 times. My favorite tracks are #1 and #4, although there's not a bad song on it. It's kind of hard for me to describe what Calla sound like. Reading the other reviews I just found out that one of the guys was from Bowery Electric (a group I really liked), and you can hear some of B.E. in Calla. It's good music for when you feel emotionally or physically run down or just want to chill out. It's a bit like Low in that the style is really loose and sometimes elegantly sparse. It also reminds me a bit of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mira and for some reason Massive Attack.