Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Collection includes: Calla (1999); Scavengers (2000); Televise (2002); Collisions (2005); Strength In Numbers (2007).

Calla was formed in New York City in 1997 by Aurelio Valle (guitar, vocals), Sean Donovan (bass, keyboards, programming), and Wayne B. Magruder (percussion, programming). However, the band's origins can be traced to Texas in 1993, where Valle and Magruder began performing together in the Denton band the Factory Press. The band relocated to New York in 1995, recording The Smoky Ends of a Burnt out Day with producers Kid Congo Powers and Matt Verta-Ray. The group split in 1997 and the album was not released until early 1998, by which time Valle and Magruder were pursuing new musical ventures. Most notably, Magruder worked with Bowery Electric, Main, and Windsor for the Derby.

In 1997, former Factory Press studio collaborator Sean Donovan arrived from Texas and took up residence in Brooklyn with Valle and Magruder. The trio set about writing and recording and Calla was born. Donovan and Magruder – who had previously worked together as the Fallen Vlods – shaped Calla's creative process around sampling and programming, marking a shift away from the approach taken by the Factory Press. A four-track demo was completed in 1998, generating interest from the Brussels label Sub Rosa, which released the band's first album to critical acclaim in 1999. Calla's self-titled debut prized apart traditional song structures and reconfigured the components into subtly apocalyptic, cinematic pieces, at times evoking electronically processed Ennio Morricone soundscapes.

Calla subsequently made the transition to performance, a process that gave Valle, Magruder, and Donovan their first taste of playing together outside a studio environment. Playing live had a significant impact on the band's sound and direction. Having been excited by the debut album, Michael Gira was particularly impressed by the way Calla's music had been changed by live performance, and signed the group to his label, Young God Records. The band's first album on Young God, Scavengers (January 2001), marked a subtle change in orientation. Scavengers was less reliant on studio processing and although it displayed a familiar atmospheric minimalist sensibility, its textures coalesced into more conventional song formats. Understanding the mixture of indie rock and high-concept art that their music represented, Televise (January 2003) solidified their jagged indie pop sound. Collisions followed two years later. Calla went on tour in Europe the following year. Their fifth album, Strength in Numbers, was released in 2007.

Wilson Neate, Allmusic.com

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Beware, this is a masterpiece! First album of the New York-based trio Calla is a truly unique experience. It is even in many aspects the quintessence of inventive post-rock: the power of silences, the fragility of slowness, the apparently simple melodies, the peculiar ambiance. Nothing is amiss: all the ingredients are in the stew. The samples and the bass create a city-like atmosphere, and somewhere in the mist of the pattern thus proposed, the guitar with its clear effect-free sound takes the listener to a trip in the desert amidst the cacti and the sand, the red rocks, and the dried rivers: a real thrill. But, the parts of the instruments are not so clearly defined, since the samples are sometimes conveying tribal voodoo undertones instead of urban ones, like in "Tarentula" and "Elsewhere" for example. But what is sure is that you are constantly bounced from one place to another, held hostage in a plane flying over different lands, making your mood change at any time. Sadness and purity are intermingled for the sake of beauty; and even if it is so cool a disc, it is paradoxically one of the most exhilarating albums of the '90s.

Romain Guillou, Allmusic.com

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Sweltering rockabilly, sedated tempos, and unsettling electronic noise combine for a bizarrely austere form of rural beauty on Calla's second record. Differing from most slow-motioned indie acts, the occasional lazy tempos seem to be borne of the withered and dazed effect from oppressive heat and humidity, rather than earmuffed nippiness. Aurelio Valle's whispered, tense, and plaintive intimacy gives off the effect of a disturbed Joe Pernice. His tone is pretty fatalistic, but he sounds perfectly at home in his discomfort without veering into doom and gloom. His guitars endlessly churn and bristle, highlighted most effectively on "The Swarm," the rockist centerpiece of the album that ends with three minutes of dissonance-drenched rockabilly on the level of prime Gun Club and early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The inspirations aren't all swampy; the six-minute "Tijerna" concludes with repetitive Velvet Underground/Joy Division spirals of guitar. "Mayzelle" and "Fondness for Crawling" act as interludes on the second half of the record, consisting of nothing but ambient noise – otherwise, the electronics nestle or emanate from underneath the more "proper" songs like gas fumes from a parched roadway. There's a ton of low end, too. The final touch is a dusty cover of U2's "Promenade," which is more properly formatted for a Wim Wenders film than any other by the Irish band, despite the ill-suited lyrics. If you're dealt with a midnight power outage in 100% humidity, hope that there are batteries left in the boombox to play this solemn, sturm-und-drang work of restrained, immense power. Despite the disparate elements, everything comes together ridiculously well.

Andy Kellman, Allmusic.com

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Televise is Calla's third album of strange, noise-infected indie pop. Static-filled drones hover and pulse and function in the way a rhythm section would in a traditional rock outfit. The band builds itself carefully around the electronics contributed by bassist/keyboardist Sean Donovan and drummer Wayne Magruder. Guitarist/vocalist Aurelio Valle's melodies don't stand out, particularly, except for their framing – and that alone is enough to make them function differently from most of Calla's contemporaries. Even forays into more traditional songwriting, such as "As Quick as It Comes/Carrera," are successful, revealing a tender, Yo La Tengo-like sound from the group – albeit equally informed by the ambient side, as demonstrated by the subtly stereo-panned drums on the same track. Televise is an impressive and adventurous – if occasionally mopey – collection of songs.

Jesse Jarnow, Allmusic.com

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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2003's Televise was by no means a poor album from Calla, but it often seemed too resigned and, occasionally, downright deflated. When the songs on 2001's Scavengers operated at a low-energy level, they at least had a smoldering, shadowy allure. On Collisions, the band wipes the sleep out of its eyes and produces a set of songs that is more inspired and vital, even if it's equally embittered and dejected. The added oomph – faster riffs here and there, stop-start rhythms, terse vocal phrasings – is bound to cause some comparisons to fellow New York band Interpol. However, each one of the characteristics has been in Calla all along. It's only now that they're being exposed to this extent (while the electronic undercurrents of old are made all but completely invisible), and the move results in the band's second-best album to date.

Andy Kellman, Allmusic.com

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Calla - Albums Collection 1999-2007 [5CD]

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Those who've ridden through the night-cloaked landscapes of Calla's last four albums will find themselves in familiar territory on Strength in Numbers. A few key things have changed, though. The electronic bells and whistles (samplers and the like) have been pushed to the backburner, and the angular, Interpol-influenced guitar work of Collisions has been, for the most part, discarded. And in this case, change is good – Strength in Numbers is one of Calla's least derivative, most developed albums to date. And yes, it's an intense listen. Calla makes the kind of throbbing, cathartic rock that's best served with a shot of whiskey and some heartache; the oily, creeping guitar licks on "Sylvia" and the dripping reverb and creepy, heart-worn lyrics of "Defenses Down" are the perfect accompaniment for despair. But there are points when lead singer Aurelio Valle's love-lorn lyrics attain a strange kind of brightness. "Rise" sparkles with Latin-infused guitar work even as Valle moans that he has "beaten on a cold, dead horse," and the sly, dangerous rockabilly guitar work of "Malicious Manner," slow as it is, makes it one of the album's most rousing tracks. Moments like these are lacking halfway through the album, though; Valle's cracked vocals, Pete Gannon's greasy guitar work, and Wayne Magruder's inexorable percussion grow nigh on lugubrious once "Le Gusta el Fuego" rolls around. These are unflinching urban sketches of love gone awry, and Calla does them justice.

Margaret Reges, Allmusic.com