CALLA

The group Calla took shape in New York City during 1997 through the collaboration of Aurelio Valle on guitar and vocals, Sean Donovan on bass, keyboards, and programming, and Wayne B. Magruder on percussion and programming. Its beginnings, however, reach back to 1993 in Denton, Texas, where Valle and Magruder first played together in the Factory Press. After the ensemble moved to New York in 1995, it recorded The Smoky Ends of a Burnt out Day under Kid Congo Powers and Matt Verta-Ray. The Factory Press disbanded in 1997, and the album appeared only in early 1998, coinciding with new endeavors by Valle and Magruder, most prominently the latter’s work alongside Bowery Electric, Main, and Windsor for the Derby.

That same year Donovan, who had previously joined Valle and Magruder in the studio as part of the Factory Press, relocated from Texas and joined them in a Brooklyn apartment. The three began composing and tracking material, giving birth to Calla. Drawing on their earlier experience as the Fallen Vlods, Donovan and Magruder centered the creative workflow on sampling and programming, a departure from the Factory Press approach. A four-track demo finished in 1998 attracted attention from the Brussels label Sub Rosa, which issued the debut album to widespread praise in 1999. That self-titled record dismantled conventional song forms and reassembled them into understated, cinematic, and foreboding works that at moments suggested electronically altered soundscapes in the vein of Ennio Morricone.

The band soon moved from the studio into live performance, granting Valle, Magruder, and Donovan their first opportunity to play together outside a recording environment. These concerts noticeably reshaped the group’s sound and trajectory. Already impressed by the debut, Michael Gira responded strongly to the alterations brought about by stage work and signed Calla to Young God Records. The first Young God release, Scavengers, arrived in January 2001 and signaled a modest reorientation, relying less on studio processing while preserving an atmospheric minimalist sensibility within more traditional song frameworks. Televise, released in January 2003, refined the band’s jagged indie pop approach by fully embracing its distinctive fusion of indie rock and conceptual art. Collisions appeared two years afterward, followed by a European tour the next year. The fifth album, Strength in Numbers, came out in 2007.