It’s Boxing Day in Sydney. I’m heading west along a freeway in the mid-afternoon, facing the kind of hazy light that beams down from a cloudless Australian sky in summer. I have a stomach comfortably filled from a few days of festive eating. I feel lethargic and sleepy, in a totally content manner. I put The Glass Bottom Boat onto the car stereo and the mood is just perfect, rolling alongside my own uninterrupted movement.
A month later and I’m walking to work in the morning. It’s been raining a lot in Sydney this summer, and today the soft patter on my umbrella is my ambience. This time Carta is coming through my headphones. Oddly enough, the sounds seem to match the nature of this environment perfectly. The album artwork is all glaciers and quartz and I can understand that association. I’ve listened to this album now in any number of settings and one thing that has been consistent is that, somehow, the music makes me constantly aware of my environment. And the music shifts to fit each environment.
Carta produces gently pulsing instrumental music. The sounds all come from traditional instruments – acoustic drums, electric guitar and bass, light touches of piano and keyboards, some saxophone and violin here and there. Each track establishes its mood and flows with it for between four and eleven minutes. There is never ecstatic climax or gaping emptiness, just a gentle forward momentum that draws you in and drags you along. The sounds are clean and pleasant, without straying into the saccharine. Soloing is not really the purpose here – none of the instruments ever strays from simple, repetitive motifs – individual sounds serve the structure. This can sometimes leave a feeling that these are sounds in search of a song – a fact highlighted by the title track, ‘The Glass Bottom Boat’, where the Sinead O’Connor-esque vocals of Sarah Bell lift it to be the undoubted album highlight with the added strength of a defining melody.
This is a minor criticism, though. Chief Carta member Kyle Monday and his floating roster of collaborators have created an evocative work which is consistent across its hour duration and which has the chameleon ability to become the perfect soundtrack to any number of environments.
Adrian Elmer
