The Looking

The Looking - 'Tin Can Head' (Astraea Records) Released 30/09/05 by Mark Perlaki This band hails from New York, not Manchester, yet have that early Smiths-sound, with Morrisey-like vocalist and song-writer Todd Carter, without Mr Marr. Sonically, The Looking are pretty much ploughing their own furrow with folk-rock songs of a sort, a nod and a wink in the Mozzas direction. Todd is something of a gifted songwiter and uses the imagery poetic, prose bright not purple, and is abley abetted by a finely suited band. 'Lily Mansions' is as flowery and textural as its title, the guitar at times screeching but working best as rhythm. 'Revolt, I Do' sounds just like, hang on, its Mercury Revs 'Goddess on a Highway', they've nabbed the opening chords. Inclining to the troubador-spirit with poetic-imagery, singing about redemption, "...never beyond my static flesh...like a flash of lighning in the summer sky...she evaporates and fades in front of my eyes" - its a good old song. "Cracked ice in sunshine, an oar out of season" is sung of with more poetic lyricism and a towering Morrisey-like voice on 'I'm Your Labyrinth', at times prayer-like in discourse, with tinkling piano and the guttaral guitar. 'Lele' is a strident and jaunty track, the guitar stretching things out, Todd singing about "Leaving Hana in a rental car, sleeping boy in the back..." and is about finding a dead kitten by the side of the road, the landscape is evoked, providing imagery and context, "...I see silence speaks...". 'Come Heal My Mind' shows good song structure and instrumentation on possibly the albums strongest track, a love-song singing "...I have let grace into my life now, I've found the one who wants to stay...", jangly guitars supporting Todd and his la la la lars. A strong track follows with 'The Colors of Fall', some melodious jazz-keys adding to the brew, Todd - "...inchoate and darkened, her hands I cannot see...delighted and annointed, her soul I wish to see", but the guitar proves somewhat tiresome and high-pitched. Todd takes on the Great Philosopher 'Spinoza' who declared all our emotions are pre-determind. Quite a duel, but then Todd studied philosophy. "...you say I have no will, act I don't from volition...Oh Spinoza, you have strangled my freedom...", the violin adding to the folkie-feel and the lyrics scything through imagery. 'The Silver' has the best guitar-licks in a driving 60mph through the woods-manner and Todd is joined by a female vocalist with a sinuous-voice. 'Tin can Head', the title track, is not the strongest offering yet sounds like Talk Talk and has a lyrical Frenchchorus. With the plethora of new releases and up and coming bands it could prove tricky for 'The Looking' to break this side of the Atlantic pond, whilst they prove more successful with college radio in the States. Its the kind of thing that ought to be in Libraries to pep some interest and to broaden ears.
http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=8900 - Gigwise

The Looking - 'Tin Can Head' (Astraea Records) Released 30/09/05 by Mark Perlaki This band hails from New York, not Manchester, yet have that early Smiths-sound, with Morrisey-like vocalist and song-writer Todd Carter, without Mr Marr. Sonically, The Looking are pretty much ploughing their own furrow with folk-rock songs of a sort, a nod and a wink in the Mozzas direction. Todd is something of a gifted songwiter and uses the imagery poetic, prose bright not purple, and is abley abetted by a finely suited band. 'Lily Mansions' is as flowery and textural as its title, the guitar at times screeching but working best as rhythm. 'Revolt, I Do' sounds just like, hang on, its Mercury Revs 'Goddess on a Highway', they've nabbed the opening chords. Inclining to the troubador-spirit with poetic-imagery, singing about redemption, "...never beyond my static flesh...like a flash of lighning in the summer sky...she evaporates and fades in front of my eyes" - its a good old song. "Cracked ice in sunshine, an oar out of season" is sung of with more poetic lyricism and a towering Morrisey-like voice on 'I'm Your Labyrinth', at times prayer-like in discourse, with tinkling piano and the guttaral guitar. 'Lele' is a strident and jaunty track, the guitar stretching things out, Todd singing about "Leaving Hana in a rental car, sleeping boy in the back..." and is about finding a dead kitten by the side of the road, the landscape is evoked, providing imagery and context, "...I see silence speaks...". 'Come Heal My Mind' shows good song structure and instrumentation on possibly the albums strongest track, a love-song singing "...I have let grace into my life now, I've found the one who wants to stay...", jangly guitars supporting Todd and his la la la lars. A strong track follows with 'The Colors of Fall', some melodious jazz-keys adding to the brew, Todd - "...inchoate and darkened, her hands I cannot see...delighted and annointed, her soul I wish to see", but the guitar proves somewhat tiresome and high-pitched. Todd takes on the Great Philosopher 'Spinoza' who declared all our emotions are pre-determind. Quite a duel, but then Todd studied philosophy. "...you say I have no will, act I don't from volition...Oh Spinoza, you have strangled my freedom...", the violin adding to the folkie-feel and the lyrics scything through imagery. 'The Silver' has the best guitar-licks in a driving 60mph through the woods-manner and Todd is joined by a female vocalist with a sinuous-voice. 'Tin can Head', the title track, is not the strongest offering yet sounds like Talk Talk and has a lyrical Frenchchorus. With the plethora of new releases and up and coming bands it could prove tricky for 'The Looking' to break this side of the Atlantic pond, whilst they prove more successful with college radio in the States. Its the kind of thing that ought to be in Libraries to pep some interest and to broaden ears.
http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=8900 - Gigwise

Whatever your mind conjures up when you hear the words "traditional folk songs" is about to get turned on its head with Songs For A Traveler, a genre-bending collection of vintage folk standards, 50's country gems and random lullaby and 19th-century logging song tossed in for good measure. The man behind the remarkable project is Todd Carter, a New York-based singer (phenomenal, actually) multi-instrumentalist and arranger who goes by the pseudonym The Looking. The concept of reinterpreting folk standards is nothing new but Carter's dramatic, occasionally operatic and densely orchestrated approach gives songs like "Wayfaring Stranger," "Long Black Veil" and Hank Williams' "Angel of Death" a powerful, goose-bump-inducing force. One of the album's best tracks is "River in the Pines", a Wisconsin logging song (and duet with Sasha Dobson) that Carter describes as "a wonderful old ballad" adding, "I kept hearing this REM-esque guitar lick that became the opening of the song." It's that kind of imaginative rethinking that makes Songs For A Traveler one of the most rewarding left-field surprises of the year. - Direct Current

Todd Carter sings, plays guitar, arranges and composes much of the material on this mix of rock, folk and indie music. He’s got a husky macho and gravelly voice and he uses it well hear on edgy material like the gospellish “900 Miles” or spiritually foreboding “Angel of Death.” A country feel dominates the intriguing “Hobo’s Meditation” and “Wayfaring Stranger,” while “Black is the Color” and “Ol’ Man River” get a bit murky in the shallows. A bit of a throwback to the 70s, when singers and bands played like they had something to say. - Jazz Weekly

Genre: Covers, Folk, Indie, Pop, Rock

Songs For A Traveler is the latest release from The Looking (aka Todd Carter). In it the operatic (he’s performed opera at places like Carnegie Hall) Carter is joined by a full band to explore songs from across the American landscape. This includes several older covers like “Long Black Veil”.


The album starts off with the very relaxed track “All The Pretty Little Horses”, which is a nice track, with some nice guitar work. “900 Miles” is more of a bluesy song about a man trying to get back to his woman. “River In The Pines” keeps up more of the same as the previous tracks but is a little more up tempo. It also features a great duet with a female vocalist. I really got into this song. Whereas earlier I was reminded more of a Silversun Pickups earlier, now I’m getting a bit of a latter-days Cardigans vibe (this in my book is high praise). Yeah I know it’s actually a Joan Baez song. “Black is the Color of my True Love’s Hair” is next up. You hear a lot of the opera come out of Carter in the early verses of the song and it’s pretty great. The guitars screeching into a beautiful soundscape to surround you and accentuate the lyrics perfectly.

I really probably could go through this track by track and give you an idea of each track, but I am way behind on some stuff, so unfortunately I don’t really have the time. So we’ll talk about some other highlights of the album.

“Ol’ Man River” is a song that everyone’s heard a billion times, but it’s reinvented into a sort of dark march here, really taking the lyrics of the song and making them very dark. “Wayfaring Stranger” veers into folk territory more full on than other tracks with some fiddle to kick it off, followed by a rather upbeat for this album track. “Blue River” is a standout track for the drumming, but I didn’t love it as much as the rest of the album.

I really need to mention that I enjoyed listening to Songs for a Traveler a lot. And not just because I enjoyed the music. I thought it was produced really well, especially for an independent release. It’s got wonderful mixing and mastering and every single instrument seems like some time went into it. It just blends together incredibly well.

I genuinely really enjoyed Songs for a Traveler and recommend picking up a copy for yourself as soon as possible. - Media Decay

The Looking is actually Todd Carter with a finely tuned set of back-up musicians—gents who've worked with Norah Jones, DJ Logic, Andrew Bird, and others—and Songs for a Traveler is so beautiful and quietly solid that it's mystical, much reminiscent of Leigh Gregory's work at its mistiest, its most darkly ironic, and finely crafted. As such, there is, of course, a generous presence of Nick Drake, John Martyn, Iain Matthews, Nick Cave, and other musicians who took the folk and folk-rock genres well outside themselves, entering into a grittily silky faeryland of progressive tendencies, an emotional milieu straddling the landscapes of Sparta and Tennyson.

Distinctly arch ringing exaltation tears through the veils as well, as in River in the Pines, which would have been a prime addition to any October Project CD, or Plainsong, or Mission UK laying out in threnodic wistfulness. Carter also located the perfect foil in Sasha Dobson, whose vocals complement his own encanting most sonorously. And you won't know the guy was operatically trained until various of certain song's passages start ramping up into the skies (first in the opening cut, All the Pretty Little Horses, and then elsewhere). We saw this same process in such singers as Burton Cummings and Ronnie James Dio, but Carter comes from a much more literary bent, half the songs his own, half classics of Americana, but every cut delivered amid Poe-inspired dramaturgy.

If this CD doesn't make your heart hurt, your soul ache, and your inner Byron cry out, then contact Mr. Carter 'cause you're already crossing the River Styx, and he'd sure like to get your travelogue for his next set of opuses. The rest of us will just sigh and pine in the darkness, and then set the disc through its paces again as we pour another cup of absinthe and belladonna. Songs for a Traveler is seamless, a tapestry of mellifluity and subtlety, a canvas of autumn shades and old sunlight, of leaves fluttering to the ground as a bell rings softly in the distance. And if you hear its call, take care not to follow too quickly. There's a reason it doesn't blare out its presence.
- Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange

Indiana native/Manhattan resident Todd Carter is clearly the product of a number of potent musical influences and life experiences on his debut album, Tin Can Head. Under band moniker The Looking (the album was recorded with session musicians, while Carter now has a set band for live gigs), Carter offers an amalgam of his obvious love of dark, British new wave (the Smiths, the Cure, New Order) and his ongoing folk/jazz/classical education. Of course, Carter's abstract poetry, sinewy art pop arrangements and impassioned croon are most reminiscent of Morrissey and the Smiths, particularly on the swelling opener, "Lily Mansions," as well as "Lele," "Spinoza," and "Love from the Moon." Carter's jazzier side surfaces in slinky tracks like "The Colors of Fall" and the title cut, while his Radiohead tendencies bloom in the disc's dramatic closer, "Breathing Ether Dreams." Todd Carter doesn't merely display his influences on Tin Can Head; he inhabits and interweaves them with his own unique vision to create a compelling sonic hybrid. - Amplifier

What happens when a guy that has studied with the Metropolitan Opera’s Edna Lind and adores Wagner also happens to dig gloomy alternative rock? Well, it would sound something like The Looking. Todd Carter is basically The Looking, for all intents and purposes, and he writes poetic lyrics, sings with a pure voice and ends up sounding like nobody else you’ve ever heard before. Carter’s voice is similar to Morrissey's during “I Am Your Labyrinth,” yet he infuses a Boy George-like vibrato into “The Colors of Fall.” This latter track also slips into a nice jazzy section at the end. Tin Can Head opens with a keyboard-aided intro that sounds a whole lot like Joe Jackson on the track called “Lily Mansions.” Carter’s vocal here, by the way, is particularly gentle, too. “The Silver” is also memorable, because Carter is ably assisted by Camomile Hixon on additional vocals. These song titles alone reveal the deeper than normal depth of Carter’s lyrical ideas. How many other artists, for instance, are capable of writing songs like “Breathing Ether Dreams” or “I Am Your Labyrinth”? (Short answer: Very few). At its best, this work has a majestic quality to it, although all of its pomp and circumstance can sometimes come off a little pretentious after a while. The Looking is a rare breed, indeed, and Tin Can Head is perfectly suited for those in search of something just outside the predictably dreary and ordinary pop realm. - Indie.com

What happens when a guy that has studied with the Metropolitan Opera’s Edna Lind and adores Wagner also happens to dig gloomy alternative rock? Well, it would sound something like The Looking. Todd Carter is basically The Looking, for all intents and purposes, and he writes poetic lyrics, sings with a pure voice and ends up sounding like nobody else you’ve ever heard before. Carter’s voice is similar to Morrissey's during “I Am Your Labyrinth,” yet he infuses a Boy George-like vibrato into “The Colors of Fall.” This latter track also slips into a nice jazzy section at the end. Tin Can Head opens with a keyboard-aided intro that sounds a whole lot like Joe Jackson on the track called “Lily Mansions.” Carter’s vocal here, by the way, is particularly gentle, too. “The Silver” is also memorable, because Carter is ably assisted by Camomile Hixon on additional vocals. These song titles alone reveal the deeper than normal depth of Carter’s lyrical ideas. How many other artists, for instance, are capable of writing songs like “Breathing Ether Dreams” or “I Am Your Labyrinth”? (Short answer: Very few). At its best, this work has a majestic quality to it, although all of its pomp and circumstance can sometimes come off a little pretentious after a while. The Looking is a rare breed, indeed, and Tin Can Head is perfectly suited for those in search of something just outside the predictably dreary and ordinary pop realm. - Indie.com