KARMA is the brainchild of Zachary Ciulla, who now is living in Austin, TX, and used to live "out near DC". "Senior Rocker" is the first KARMA release in over three years - everything has been self-released so far. In DC. Zachary was in a indie/shoegazer band called CALENDAR (with his friends Geoff and George). - "I was the loudest fucking bass-player, haha. It was part of our sound, though.""The initial tracks were recorded live, in like, 2 or 3 sessions with my friend Geoff (ex-Calendar drummer) at his basement in Arlington, Virginia. This was in October 2008. I just happened to be in-town visiting, and we decided to make the record right there. We took a super Lo-Fi approach, both out of interest and necessity, recording quickly and using whatever equipment he had laying around. We recorded onto my old TASCAM 8-track cassette-corder, which ate the tape at one point. Actually, we lost most of a song because of that. Anyways, after our time was up, I mastered the results onto another cassette, collecting not only the basic songs, but also outtakes and mangled or slowed-down snippets to use as filler material. That's where three of the tracks come from. Most of the overdubs were recorded back at my apartment in San Marcos, Texas. There I transferred the songs from that tape onto my computer, which is what I used for the rest of the process. The software I used was ACID for overdubbing and mixing, and Sound Forge for mastering. I finished this record on December 31st, 2008, just in time for New Years :) ... I played guitar and sang, Geoff played drums. I overdubbed more guitar and singing later, as well as bass and maybe one or two keyboard tracks back at my apartment. ... The cover is a picture of Geoff's dog, Toby, stoned as usual. Also, this album is dedicated to Geoff's dad, S... W... . We started recording the day after he passed away, it was sort of eerie, but strangely uplifting..." (Z. C.)
Zachary mentions GUIDED BY VOICES as a key influence (as well as MODEST MOUSE), and one can clearly hear that (though in fact I like KARMA's sound better...) An confident and uplifting, if somehow bittersweet and quirky listening experience. Pretty cool homemade lofi stuff, well worth a listen!
Favourite track: "Stilted"
http://www.myspace.com/karmarock Check it out! More free downloadable recordings there!
Karma - Senior Rocker (2008) (minus 2 songs)
(9 tracks (2 cover versions were left out), 29:18 min, 29,3 MB, front cover incl.)
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1 comment:
i dig the GBV influence, though their songs were much shorter...hehe..kinda has a 60's vibe as well. psychedelic indeed! "stilted" is my favorite so far. cool!
- Russ of Aural Incline
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