Calla

Beware: this is a masterpiece! The first album from the New York-based trio Calla is a truly unique experience. In many aspects, it is even 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 on a trip in the desert amidst the cacti and the sand, the red rocks, and the dried rivers; it's 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 "Tarantula" 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. [The 2004 reissue of Calla includes the bonus live cuts "Elsewhere," "Custom Car Crash," and "Awake and Under."]