November 1–8, 2001

music

Chill and Cuddly

Collette Carter’s private electronic coupling goes public.

by A.D. Amorosi

Cool couple: Collette Carter’s Rod and Wylinda.

Music as intimate as that created by Collette Carter — a group, not a person — is rare. The name’s borrowed from a high school friend, and their friendship with Rob Cantagallo and Mike Page, the ambient music makers in Mall and proprietors of the tbtmo label, gave their music a home. After that, Collette Carter comes down to two.

The palpitating electro-pop duo of Rod Sledge and longtime love Wilynda just released their debut, The New Stroboscopic (tbtmo/Darla). Break-beaten for tenderness, Stroboscopic slowly blows synth puckers like wet kisses across cool melody with windy string washes dancing like fingers across a loved one’s thighs. To Rod’s vibrating operetta, Wilynda adds the tiniest breaths and happiest endings. The home-recording couple took their time to get this soft shuffling jungle masterpiece right. The result is an intimate, quietly obsessive sound so dear and drunk with love it comes off as Everything but the Girl soaked in absinthe.

"These songs are about our breakups and makeups — an ongoing thing since high school," says Wilynda from the Moorestown, N.J., apartment she shares with Rod. "To be honest, the how and why of how it came to be is in a haze of its own. I’m not exactly sure how. I’m just glad it did."

So is Rod. Though known to locals as a silent partner in Mall and his own disquieting electronic act, Pacifica, Sledge, 26 (as is Wilynda), is happily daffy with his life (so far, 11 years and counting) partner and workmate. "As we grew as a couple, our writing became better," says Rod. "As we became better writers, I think we became a better couple. To tell you the truth, I think this whole Collette Carter ‘thing’ is — as lame-ass as it may sound — an expression of love. Sometimes I look at her and think, ‘Damn, I’m writing a fucking song with her!’ and sometimes I’m like, ‘Damn, I’m glad to wake up next to you every morning.’"

The key to sonic serenity could come from a certain spirituality they both share and readily credit during our chat. It could come from a trust bound by time, like the relationship Sledge has with Cantagallo and Page. Since teen-time shared in Burlington, N.J., the three pals hung tight, created an anti-band The Wawas ("named not after the store, but from the nitrous buzz," says Rod) and a zine that became the label that birthed them and, with Sledge as unofficial third member, made Mall’s Special Education and 05.17.2012 01:34:28 PM-0400 CDs, whose clattering brittle loveliness inspired Stroboscopic’s bright, creepy Philly-space-lounge soul sound. "Rob runs a great label and super-dope website. Mike’s an unbelievable musician," says Rod of his Mall rats. "Those guys are two of my very best friends."

So too was Wilynda. She met Sledge in eighth grade but didn’t date him till tenth. She may have missed out on Mall’s dope-smoking, weed-wacking beats done in bedrooms and basements throughout Burlington. But she didn’t miss what Sledge was up to, his music’s haunted melodicism, subtle grooves and his way with a sine wave.

Their romance began in sophomore music class, blooming over long distance phone calls in college. Limited time and space brought them unity. As the relationship gathered steam, their union as a musical team occurred. They seem gently bemused about their start, giddy over cheap sequencers, twee synths and other accouterments bedsit studios bring. "We started four years ago in our bedroom [under] a $50 remote-control black light," she says. "Big spenders we were, living with our parents." Their working/writing relationship started first as the new wavey Stereo Symphonic with a song called "m-flo." Tweaked with airy, jazzier vibes and soul-sinking beats, they became Collette Carter. Then, as now, Wilynda provided a soft intoxicating voice and overall melodics; Sledge the beats and ambience.

What makes Carter so coquettishly Colette is Wilynda’s dark romantic way around a lyric and breezy sense of melody she believes gets stronger with better technology. "I thought I was just writing ‘cute’ little synth parts to go with his beats," says Wilynda of music ripe with airy distance and passionate heartache-y lyrics presented in an enveloping haze of etherealism.

"It came out as sort of a newer wave, if I may be so bold," says Rod of what became Stroboscopic’s signature — an upward-spiraling synth sound with the elegiac uplift of house and the catchiness of ’60s girl-pop. Though Rod says the baby steps of Stroboscopic and an upcoming release American Internationalist are stairways to greater experimentation in the future, he bundles Collette Carter in a declaration of intent. "I’d like to think what we do is wrap you like your fave blanket with big hooks and soft melody," says Sledge. "Collette Carter is not meant to fuck with your mind. It’s meant to warm your soul."