Charalambides - Likeness

Brother and sister duo Charalambides may hail from Austin, Texas - home to fellow psychedelic folk troubadours The 13th Floor Elevators – but like them, their hearts and minds seem effortlessly to transgress the Lone Star state. Christina Carter's ethereal, sometimes manipulated vocals, with layered eastern chants and lyrics culled from traditional songs and poems, certainly pull the listener in more scenic directions. An almost total lack of percussion cements the otherworldly vibe. Underpinning all this, Tom Carter's reverb-heavy guitar lurks ominously in the background, periodically coming to the fore in a dizzying mesh of droll, stoner strumming and satanic axe-burning, sounding at times like present day freak-folk psychedelic lunatics Acid Mothers Temple, though perhaps without the steady diet of class-As. Songs like The Good Life show a more structured style of songwriting but it's when, inevitably, such conventions are given the heave-ho, that the Carter siblings are best appreciated. [Darren Carle]