Exile

Exile is the new album by the duo Charalambides. Five years in the making, it was recorded between 2006 and 2010 in various locations in New Hampshire, Western Massachusetts, and New York City. The album was mixed at Black Dirt Studios and mastered at Sand with Paul Gold.

The core duo of Christina and Tom Carter remain the driving force behind Exile, with contributions on one track by the string section of Helena Espvall and Margarida Garcia. The album is deeply imbued with the full historical spectrum of American folk and blues song form.

Exile is a tapestry of suppliant invocations directed at the heart of the unseen spiritual forces surrounding us. Dense arrangements and thickly-overdubbed tracks sit side-by-side with material that ranks among the sparest and most skeletal the group has recorded.

This album gives Exile the psychic scope of their classic Market Square album while building on the refinements of the more recent Likeness and A Vintage Burden releases. Coincidentally, this album marks Charalambides' 20th anniversary, as they first started playing in the fall of 1991 and made their live debut in December of that year.

Since their last album, Tom Carter has released a series of collaborations and solo works on a wide array of labels, while Christina Carter has been steadily releasing her solo work through labels including her own Many Breaths imprint.