christina carter: masque femine

Masque Femine should be regarded as a total work -- much like a film, a ballet, a building, or, an altarpiece -- rather than as an album of individual songs. And, its fundamental subject should not be understood to be romantic love. Christina Carter was born in the bayou city of Houston, Texas in November of 1968, and co-founded the group Charalambides there in December of 1991. Ever since then, she has deeply mined her own vein of sound-as-music with voice, guitar (both electric and acoustic), piano, and keys. For the past several years, Christina has utilized extended improvisational guitar passages within and without song-medley structures; re-contextualized certain Charalambides songs within the spare single guitar/voice form that birthed much of the group's music; and recently, investigated "the song" as a thing unto itself, specifically concentrating on "the word" -- both in her own lyric writing and her interpretations of the work of other lyricists.