Wise Owl Records

Charts and Maps

Though Charts and Maps is a young band, it has roots extending back a number of years. Lead guitarist John Taylor, bassist Jemayel Khawaja and now ex- acoustic guitarist and keyboardist Eugene Marder are childhood friends who picked up instruments together and found minor acclaim as precocious young prog-rockers with Soli i Sombra in 2003. Though only in high school at the time, they impressed many with their adventurous song structures and forward-thinking conceptual bases. Their 'Armadillo Ep,' is a 40-minute concept album revolving around a race of armadillos residing on a far off planet and their battle with alien robots laying seige to their homeland.

The nucleus to the current line-up came to fruition in 2005 inside a delapidated craftsman home in south central Los Angeles, California in which Khawaja, Marder, guitarist Alec Owen, and drummer Dan Melancon lived together while sophomores at the Universiy of Southern California. Though Owen was performing with now defunct shoegaze/post-pop darlings The Archbishops at the time, the house's collective actions focused more on imbibing illicit substances and less on collaborative music efforts.

Charts and Maps began making music together in the Spring of 2007. The chemistry shared between members allowed for fruitful and expedient progress in writing and rehearsing of songs. The band's EP, 'Charts and Maps Killed a Man,' is a five-song EP consisting of the first five songs the band wrote together. Melancon and Khawaja form a solid, flexible, and creative rhythm section while John Taylor's searing technical virtuosity interplays with Marder's thoughtful note selection and Owen's sometimes-angular, sometimes-ethereal aesthetic to create a sound that is highly versatile when skipping between styles but also highly capable of creating sounds unable to be categorized. The band creates music unrestrained by adherence to any scene or ideal.

The standout track on their EP, "10:58," begins with moody, yet driving minor-key angst progressing into a more jaunty, pinback-esque groove before falling into an abstract section bouncing between time signatures while putting forth a concise sound that is difficult to latch onto any derivative predecessor. The band manages to make music that is consistently emotive and melodically compelling but also structurally progressive and rhythmically adventurous. They are capable of surprising any listener with an unexpected curveball at any time. Simply, I can't explain what they sound like because they don't sound like anybody else. Perhaps Charts and Maps' trump card lies in the fact that their music is so progressive, yet, as a band they are quite young. Their chemistry, creativity, and technical ability assure that if they maintain their current trajectory, they will definitely leave their mark on modern progressive music.

—Jasper Crane, p.H.D

Recommended if you like: El Ten Eleven, Double Dragons, Sorry No Ferrari.

Contact: chartsandmaps@wiseowlrecords.com.