by Corey Kahn After doing time with experimental music outfits such as ZS, Ocrilim (with Mick Barr), and Dirty Projectors, Wesleyan music graduate and modern guitar deconstructionist Charlie Looker struck out on his own in 2006 with his solo project Extra Life. Taking cues from his past in ZS into a more song-based direction, Looker released a three-song CD-R EP on the FNR Show Releases label and quickly started playing out around the New York City area, as well as setting off on a brief three-week tour of the East Coast and the Southern United States, sharing stages with Dan Deacon, the Dead Science, Parenthetical Girls, and Nat Baldwin along the way. In early 2008, Looker put together a cast of characters including bassist Tony Gedrich (Archaeopteryx), drummer Ian Antonio (ZS), keyboard/tenor sax player Travis Laplante (Little Women), and violinist Caley Monahon-Ward (Nat Baldwin), and took to the road in February and March of that year on Extra Life's first tour as a full band. Their debut full-length record, Secular Works, was released that May on Planaria Recordings, and was followed by two releases on Sockets, a solo acoustic guitar EP and a split 7" with Nat Baldwin.