Calla

Calla makes a music circulating; pulsating with jagged emotion. It is the cutting away at a deep darkness with sheets of white light. A music quivering between noise and silence, a lullaby made of last breaths. Occupying both the garage and the temple, Calla are at once dissonant and pristine, harmonious and rhythmic. They cling to the dirty residues of NYC with an attention always affixed upward to cosmopolitan refinement. A fact perhaps explained by the group’s roots in Texas and their emigration to Brooklyn. Unlike most of their contemporaries, Calla understand the way in which the dirtiness of rock intersects the world of high art. From their 1999 self-titled debut to 2003’s TELEVISE, Calla pushes harshly against complacency with stunning sophistication. The music allows avant gestures to collapse into supple pop while catapulting their dark breathless aggression into furious swells of feedback. This is the moment when the curtains open and light floods the room.