United States of Belt - Pancake Alley

Chloe 005/Champ 05

Boston’s creative music scene is one of the richest in the country, yet some of its best players and activities are well below even ardent improv fans’ radar. Outside of the more familiar forms of jazz and free improvisation, the city boasts a developing and very rich community interested equally in non-idiomatic improvisation, electro-acoustic music, and, for lack of a better term, New Music. One of that scene’s key figures is bassist Mike Bullock, whose imprint Chloe Records teams up on this fascinating release with Champ Records, who have previously released the creations of the fascinating Troy, NY group United States of Belt.

What better time to reflect upon the sonic meanings of the United States than now, when the stunned silence following the Presidential election opens up a huge void. By turns hilarious, sentimental, and intensely challenging, United States of Belt’s performances – two long tracks, “Ping Pong Holiday” and “Sleepytown Breakfast” – are constructed from field recordings collected and assembled during the band’s travels around the country. The musicians themselves (the liners identify “featured players” – Vic Rawlings on banjo and electronics, Erika Tompkins on blueberry pancakes, and Jordan Tinker as narrator – though I’m not sure who the other participants, or even the principals, are) apparently formulated the concept of “an imaginary town on a riverside with many attractions.” And this general carnivalesque approach isn’t a bad angle onto the fascinating, Barnum-like panoply of sounds here.

The collected recordings were orchestrated – given a narrative, if you will – and then smashed together live in Boston’s Cyclorama, described as “a huge, cylindrical building with a unique sound open and reverberant.” That explains where the crashing, submarine sounds come from; and the overall effect is pretty powerful. Stock pieces of sonic Americana bounce and crash everywhere, as if they were ghosts trying to escape some spirit-prison of nostalgia. Disparate voices cry out in solitude (a man cautiously repeating “Hello? Hello?” or a churchified organ) and merge together (a corny, nasal rendition of the national anthem colliding with massive metallic sounds). “Sleeptown Breakfast” begins softly, ominously, sounding almost like a cascade of thumbtacks clattering across a tin roof until a lonely train whistle catalyzes a dizzying stream of events once more. Strange highlight abound, most provocatively what sounds like a Chinese folk song bouncing along a pulse track of whooshing water and car engine noises.

Folks around here listen to a lot of stuff, most of it – good or bad – falling within certain well-defined parameters. This release is not only immediately pleasing, but welcome in the way it eludes conventional genre. As dense as an Elliott Carter composition, as familiar as the street parade calliope and fireworks that close the disc, this is fantastic stuff.