Having produced one of the more seamless albums of 2007, in The Glass Bottom Boat, it would appear from the outset that things come easy to such a talented band like San Francisco's Carta. "Not so!" says band leader Kyle Monday as he reflects on a fraught four year recording period that almost imploded his band.

Hi Kyle, 2007 has just drawn to a close, how was it for you?

It was pretty successful. We released our album in 2007, after spending ages finishing it up. We also wrote and began recording the follow up.

On your MySpace profile, you posted a blog entitled 'A Year On', where you stated you thought Carta was finished back in 2006. Can you explain what was going on and what changed in 2007?

We basically broke up in fall of 2006 after playing a show with The Caseworker. My wife had just had our first child and it looked like it would be very difficult for me to allot time to the band and my family; I also hadn't written anything new in over a year, and the songs that we had that hadn't been recorded we couldn't agree on an arrangement. Sarah, who was playing keyboards and sang, was leaving to deal with her wedding and was getting a new job, and we had some major disagreements about new material with our drummer.

We played quite a bad, alcohol-fueled set and I got very depressed about the point of it all, so I wrote to everyone and suggested going on hiatus; everyone (who responded) agreed. And then about a month later, I was offered a solo show at a gallery. I'm not even sure why I said yes, I must have been feeling very wound up without a creative outlet for a month! I was a bit nervous about doing anything solo and my friend Sacha, who had played bass on one song on our album, offered to accompany me.

I'd only done one show in the past without a drummer and it was a pretty awful experience, so I wrote to Raj Ojha, who had played in some other bands we'd done shows with; I knew he wasn't playing with those bands anymore and I'd always really loved his playing, and to my surprise, he said he'd be happy to play with us. So we rehearsed old Carta material for about a week and played and it went very well; although I booked and played the show under the name "Kavan" because I was nervous about pissing off former Carta members. By the time spring of 2007 rolled around it was fairly obvious that this was just the next evolution of Carta and we'd written a few songs and arranged the old things the former band had trouble with. Luckily Ray (Welter) came back to play guitar with us around this time as well and things really fell together.

"The Glass Bottom Boat" met almost universal acclaim, was it a weight off of your shoulders to finally get it out there after such a lengthy recording process?

Absolutely. I'd given myself until the birth of my son to finish it and it overlapped that by about three months. As alluded to above, the time I spent at the end of the album in the mixing room was quite dire, I felt like I was working on a terminal project for a band that no longer existed. Also, it rained every single day I worked on that record. I'd never made an album before and it was hard to know when to stop. Our engineer would present me with four mixes and I'd spend all day trying to decide which one was better; in the end you know, no-one can really tell. I'd agonize about placement of guitars on the soundstage, how we panned stuff....Glen of Piano Magic reminded me that no-one cares about our expert panning skills and recommended I listen to Black Flag for inspiration.

If you could go back in time, what would you do differently when recording the first record?

I'd do it in less time. We did the basic tracks in three stages; the very first things were done years ago to tape and we threw everything away except for some stuff used on Kavan; the next were some sessions that made up the bulk of the songs on the album; and then almost a year after that, we did "Glass Bottom Boat" and some other stuff that wound up being cut. By then, Jason had left the band, Sarah had joined. I mean, there were good developments, and "Glass Bottom Boat" wouldn't have happened without Sarah joining, but I wish that there hadn't been a nine month gap in our tracking sessions because things just felt very different then. I would say I'm 90% happy with about 50% of the album, and maybe 60% happy with the other half. This is a pretty good ratio. It just felt nice to finally have it in my hands.

What would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of having such a revolving line-up?

It makes planning anything a joke. There is a saying though, "make a plan and god laughs" so maybe that's a good thing to keep in mind while doing a record. I say we had a revolving lineup but that was by circumstance and not by design. People's lives intervene and this band isn't going feed anyone, so you wind up relying people who have the extra time and will to work on the songs; and then you have to get on with them as well.

For your next release, do you expect to have a more stable line-up and less a fraught recording period?

We've finished the basic tracks of 15 songs for the new album, and now we just have to do overdubs so I guess the answer is yes. We're aiming to have it finished by summertime. So it will be out for next Christmas and we'll have a shot at the Number One (just kidding).

There seems to be a more dynamic feel to the new compositions I have heard, is that something Carta have been aiming for?

Not consciously but that's a bit of an outgrowth of the way we've been working which has been more collaborative. Most of the material on "The Glass Bottom Boat" I wrote by myself and then the band arranged, but there are a fair number of songs this time around that we wrote together, or other people initiated. I think I sent you "Prettier At Night" which everyone wrote in parts. "Descension" has a long history; the ending of it I wrote the same day as "Glass Bottom Boat" (it has the same tuning and capoing actually; in fact we recorded it for the last record but I cut it, it was very loud and the feel was just wrong), the intro and middle section Sacha and I did together in his living room one day last year. Spiritually it's the sequel to "Glass Bottom Boat" and fulfills the same purpose as that song on the album. "Sidereal" is one of the songs we didn't do for "The Glass Bottom Boat" because the old band couldn't arrange it, but this band had it no problem. "Small Lights" is a track Sacha did by himself, "Santander" I've done by myself so far.

One of the key components of the first record for me was the way the varying guitar parts all intertwined together and it is an aspect that appears to have been retained in the newer material. How does Carta approach writing a song like this?

Ray coming back to Carta was key to retaining that because without him, I was the only guitarist! Ray played bass on the first record, except for a few things; but he only played bass because I asked him to, we had a second guitarist at the time and didn't need any more guitars. This was unfortunate because he's a wonderful guitar player. He's much happier not playing bass I think; and Sacha had been doing bass work in Charles Atlas for so long that it was natural for him to use that instrument. I think everyone plays very economically and in a very complimentary manner; we just come up with parts that have lots of spaces in them and other people always have the right ear to answer those parts.

Parts of the last record reminded me of Mogwai's "Come On Die Young", (although I didn't point to it in the review). Are Glasgow's finest an influence and what other artists to you look to for inspiration?

I like Mogwai but I don't listen to them as much as I used to. I think "Rock Action' was the last of their records I spent a lot of time with. When we started registering traffic on Last.fm I was surprised to see about 20 bands I'd never heard of listed as 'similar.' My influences are probably fairly obvious: Bark Psychosis, Lanterna, and Disco Inferno. Almost every review of ours said "Hood" so as a laugh I've asked different people from Hood to remix "Kavan". Hopefully those will come out someday.

Without giving too much away, what can we expect from the next record, more of the same or are Carta looking to expand their sound?

There are some pretty heavy rock songs this time around and even a few things with nice pop hooks; it's the result of playing together as a band more this time. There are also some short, more experimental interstitial songs. "Small Lights" isn't much like anything we've done before; we also have two songs that will have electronic mixes done by Raj and Gabriel Cohen (from the band Continental). Well we'll see how everything fits together when it's done. At this point I believe we'll have cello work on the album again, it depends on Alex's schedule. Sarah is doing some vocal and keyboard work. I sing one song. I think the new album is much more varied and the good parts are like the good parts of GBB, but better. Songs like "Prettier at Night" and "Who Killed the Clerk?" don't sound like anything on the last album.

Obviously Resonant are going on hiatus for the foreseeable future where does that leave Carta?

Without a label! Yeah Resonant going away is quite sad. We had some interest from other labels for the last record but they were kind of non-committal; I'll be knocking on those doors again; maybe we've proved ourselves now. We waited until "The Glass Bottom Boat" was finished before we shopped it but I might start sooner this time. Obviously the music industry is in a terrible shape at the moment, even for Indies, so you're relying on people who are running labels for the love of it and not because they have any financial aspirations. People say "why not put it out yourself" but I'm still old school about things like that and I don't think we're big enough to do it. I think Carta is a bit of a unique sounding band so I'm hoping a unique label will pick us up.

You mentioned the prospect of on-going collaborations for the next record, will these come into fruition?

Yellow6, Sybarite, randomNumber, Richard from Hood, and some other people all did remixes for us, but I don't know where those will wind up. On the new album, I'm hoping to have Brian and Dee from Thee More Shallows do some work; Brian will engineer some of our overdub sessions, Dee said he'd be happy to be involved in some way. Alex is hopefully back on cello.

Which musician(s), past or present, would you most like to collaborate with?

I've been very lucky in that almost anyone I've ever asked to work with me has said yes. I'd love to have been in Disco Inferno. A few of the new songs want to be produced by Martin Hannett (late producer of Joy Division). American Music Club are my favorite band... If I ever want to self destruct or get fired, I'll ask Mark Eitzel if I can play with him.

What about soundtracking, would you consider scoring a film and if so what genre would you feel most at home with?

It would be challenging to have to write music for images. We've played with films live in the past but they've been incidental experimental stuff that we didn't follow. I'd be happy to have to write music for a film with a story. Or even happier for someone to license something we've already done. HINT HINT. I need to pay for my kid's preschool somehow you know.

Carta feature a number of musicians from what seems like, from the outside, a close-knit community of musicians, what can you tell us about the musical climate in your area?

Carta has featured everyone who's ever been in Charles Atlas with the exception of Charles himself (actually he did record with me early on but we didn't use those tracks in the end); Sarah, Jason, Alex, Matt, Sacha were all in that band at some point. I basically just pick up all the talent after he's done with them (just kidding). Otherwise I know about four bands around here: Thee More Shallows, the Drift, and then some people no-one has heard of. Over the past year and a half I blinked and about 200 new bands popped up in San Francisco, I have no idea who they are, but they all get better gigs than we do. They are probably younger and spend much more time partying and getting followers; we're all getting old, having families, and adding pounds to our stomachs. But people like Danny from Tarentel/the Drift and Dee and Brian from Thee More Shallows are really sweet guys with similar tastes as me. Maybe one day we'll all have to band together to fight the younger bands with better hair than us. We'll probably lose.

I will say that I love San Francisco but surprisingly, for a foggy rainy town, it's not a very loyal city for us people who make saddo music. Even great bands like American Music Club, Swell and Red House Painters had to go over to Europe to get any kind of following before becoming big here.

Last question, where do you see Carta one year from now? In the middle of a UK tour, perhaps?

Both Sacha and I have toddlers so it's a bit hard to tour right now but maybe in a year it could happen. Sacha's family is all in London. We're much more likely to tour the UK and Italy than ever tour the US, certainly.

It's quite difficult for me to even garner up US press but Europe has been much more open and interested. I suppose that goes with being on a UK label. Let's see when the new record comes out, what happens. But yes, I'd love to do that eventually.