""An Index of Birds" is the culmination of a years' worth of writing, recording, and mixing. After finishing their debut album "The Glass Bottom Boat", Carta leader Kyle Monday called for a hiatus until the album was released (on UK label Resonant, home of Tarentel, Do Make Say Think, Jessica Bailiff) in 2007; by that time, the band had undergone an almost complete transformation, with all regular members gone except for Kyle and Ray Welter. Regrouping with Oakland drummer Raj Ojha (who had just left electro-post-rock band Run Return) and partnering with bassist/guitarist Sacha Galvagna (Charles Atlas), the band began to work on an entirely new suite of songs. At one point planning two separate albums, one more band-focused and another made up of more ambient experimental tracks, a cohesive body of work began to coalesce from the disparate sessions, and one album took shape. Cellist Alex Kort (Subtle) returned to work on several of the songs, and Lorealle Bishop took up the mantle as the band's new female vocalist. Former Continental drummer and Christopher Willits-collaborator Gabriel Coan mixed several tracks on the album, and eventually became Carta's dedicated drummer.

Recorded and mixed by the band, Sean Coleman, and Eli Crews (Deerhoof, Why?, Citay) and following the direction to 'make it sound like it was recovered from a sunken ship' (perhaps the boat from the previous release), the result is an album that recalls the debut in feel but has both a more pastoral and more sinister tone. Placing more importance on vocals this time out, "An Index Of Birds" was a dedicated attempt to move beyond the stereotyped post-rock idiom and investigate textures and composition. Tiny electronic landscapes, soundtrack bombast, Krautrock-inspired psychedelia, and brooding melodrama all found a home in the final tracklist. "Descension", the sibling-song to "The Glass Bottom Boat", took up the obligatory eleven minute track slot, and rescued a discarded song from the GBB sessions as it's epilogue. Two tracks from the album can be heard in Jonathan Cvack's upcoming independent short film "The Fools of June."

The album will be released in early winter, 2009, on Silber Records, as a CD in a lovely tri-fold digipack.

Other Carta related news: Raj Ojha can be heard playing drums in Howlin' Rain. Sacha Galvagna can be heard playing music in Charles Atlas in the soundtrack of this winter's Jason Reitman/George Clooney film "Up in the Air" as well as the current trailer. Lorealle Bishop has contributed vocals to the next album from Macha/Seaworthy member Josh McKay. Carta itself is currently writing and recording the next Carta album, provisionally entitled "The Apothecary's Missive."