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Being
interested in the intersection between art and place, I note that the home
base of drone -rock improvisateurs Pelt is the city of Richmond in the
American state of Virginia, the same city where Edgar Allan Poe lived and
worked for many years, and a place seemingly at the epicentre of some pretty
outre current musical endeavours (Labradford, Gospel Midgets and Rake
come to mind). In invoking the memory of Poe, we’re not talking about black
fingernail polish here, maybe just a shared affinity for a certain inward -spiralling
darkness, and the mutual acknowledgment of something malevolent out there in
the woods somewhere. I have never made any secret of my admiration for the
desolate asteroid landscapes of Pelt’s work, and the way that the best of it
has the power to induct the listener into its gravitational field the way
that a bird on an ill -fated trajectory is sucked into the engines of a
large passenger jet. The three members of the band, guitarists Patrick Best,
Mike Gangloff and Jack Rose, have sent four albums out into the world in the
last two years, all filled with the poetry of wood -and -wire instruments
taken way out there to the perimeter and left to get on with things on a
survival -of -the -fittest basis. Early works, like those found on VHF’s
‘Brown Cyclopaedia’, hark back strongly to the best of the Xpressway crowd.
Tracks like ‘Anchored’, ‘Couldn’t See It’ and ‘Secret Grudge Matches’ adhere
to rock structures in the same irritable way that some of the Dead C’s most
conflicted works do, slightly contemptuous of them but not quite willing to
let go completely. For both bands the conflict ultimately produces great
skewed psychedelic mayhem (and isn’t that why we’re all here?).
Unfortunately this obvious early reference point gave a lot of mentally
-lazy critics and observers an easy out, an opportunity to equate the sum
total of Pelt to the Dead C. But while recognising its ghosts and exorcising
them, ‘Brown Cyclopaedia’ already sign -posted the way ahead, with elements
of brittle mountain folk, eastern -influenced modal/drone, spoken word and
chants, and shimmering improvisational tone poems. And you’d go a long way
to hear a more cantankerous two -fingered aural salute to privileged
collegiate America than the tracks ‘Absolution’ and ‘Almighty’, beautiful
calls to worship at the alter of free -improvised drone performed in a
threatening atmosphere captured nicely by the portable cassette recording,
complete with abusive one -liners. Typically, it is these threads that have
been developed most fully on subsequent albums, and most successfully on
‘Max Meadows’, where their work is taken to another level by increasing
awareness of how to lay down a compelling underlying structure to wreak
improvisational havoc over. An increasing variety of instrumentation is
deployed on this later material too, with 15 minute tracks like ‘Samsara’
and ‘Hippy War Machine’ being transfigured into tranced -out psychedelic
masterpieces by use of home -made oscillators, Japanese woodwinds, djembes
and trap kits and God knows what else. The most recent release, the very
scarce 300 -only tour LP ‘Snake to Snake’ signals a move away from guitar to
re -interpret older material with new instruments and instrumental ideas.
Another bold and fascinating record, one that taken in conjunction with ‘Max
Meadows’ signals some kind of interim destination where perhaps they might
pause briefly. Thus perhaps a pretty good time and place for the Terrascope
to catch up with them.
Mike Gangloff sketches a
thumbnail history of the origins of the band. “Pelt passed the five -year
mark this January,” he begins. “The first two years were a fast -forward
take on all sorts of ‘artistic differences’. There was a lot of uncertainty
about how to, on one hand, have something that had some sort of impact and
could play out, and on the other, keep Pelt's initial elements from
disappearing. This sounds pretentious, but the problem was basically to keep
from dissolving into yet another interchangeable rock band. A turning point
came when the band's ‘rhythm section’ quit and James Connell and I did a
show with friend Paul Goode rolling tape loops behind our guitars. Paul was
probably the most interesting part of the set with his tapes feeding through
a reel -to -reel then wrapping around his arms, neck and torso as he adopted
various poses to vary the pitch, etc. Anyhow, Pat and Jack, who were playing
in what was then one of my favourite bands, Ugly Head, were at that show.
Jack finished the set by using a mattock to smash the speaker we'd funnelled
everything into. Pat volunteered his services immediately afterwards and for
the rest of that summer played in a lineup that included me, James and Paul.
There were a couple more twists and turns but by January 1995, James had
quit to become a motorcycle racer and Paul had his own groups. Pat and Jack
joined me at first on a provisional basis to complete a set of shows that
had been set up previously.”
Mike was born in
Lexington, Kentucky, and gravitated to Virginia thirteen years ago. “I've
basically been in one band or another since I was sixteen. Pelt has come
closest to realising the tones, the sound - this is hard to describe - the
feelings that I hoped to find when I started thinking seriously about
why I played.”
Jack Rose is from Virginia
and started playing music when he was about twelve. In the early 1990s he
started listening to The Dead C and the Xpressway groups, Sun City Girls,
and various Siltbreeze bands. “I first played with Pat Best in a band called
Ugly Head in 1993, a loud noise band that self released two singles and a
couple compilation tracks on the ‘Dixie Flatline’ CD that Mike and Amy put
out on their Radioactive Rat label a few years back, which is where Pat and
I met Mike and Amy. Ugly Head lasted about a year and a half and did many
shows with an earlier incarnation of Pelt. The current Pelt line up didn't
start until the winter of 1995.”
Patrick Best was born in
Kansas City, Missouri. “My father was an old-time fiddle player. His fiddle
had two sound posts and a rattlesnake rattle inside it! I knew Jack from
playing in Ugly Head. What really solidified my role was seeing the show
where Mike, Paul and James were playing. I saw that the potential for truly
experimental music was there at my feet.”
One of the first shows by
the current Pelt line-up was at Colgate College in Hamilton, New York,
hilariously documented on the ‘Brown Cyclopaedia’ album. Mike takes up the
story: “This was the third show that Pat and Jack and I played together as
Pelt and took place within two weeks of our first practice. Colgate College
is a high dollar private school buried in the frozen wastes of outback New
York. We were to play in the Student Union Building, opening for Babe the
Blue Ox who were very nice to us and lent Jack an expensive new Marshall rig
after his Silvertone amp crashed and burned during soundcheck. We should
have seen it as a sign of things to come. When it was time to play, the
place was pretty crowded and people actually cheered as we opened. But at
each stop, there was distinctly less applause and people were starting to
move back from the risers that had been set up for a stage. From what we
could tell, everyone there absolutely hated us. People treated us like we
had some sort of contagious disease and wouldn't even talk to us afterwards.
We couldn't find a place to spread our sleeping bags that night, the few
people who would make eye contact said no. Luckily, because it was far too
cold to sleep in the van, my sister was living about two hours away and so
off we headed.”
“The roads had iced up
pretty well by now,” Mike continues, “and we almost wrecked on the way to
her house. The equipment shifted in the van and knocked out a tail light and
sure enough, a few miles later a police car pulled us over to talk about it.
While I was showing one officer the tangle of amps and cords in the back,
another officer came around the passenger window and started fishing for
drug violations. ‘What's that bowl there?’ the officer asked, pointing to
the engine cover between the seats. ‘What, this socket wrench?’ replied
Patrick, holding up the offending hardware. Embarrassed, the forces of law
and order retreated and left us to continue on our way! The recording that
appears on ‘Brown Cyclopaedia’ was done with a handheld unit that sat on the
soundboard. I think the loudest comments are from the promoter and soundman,
who apparently gnashed their teeth throughout. ‘Fucking hippie garbage!’ is
my favourite.”
A combination of
self-belief and sheer perversity sustained the intrepid trio through these
torrid early experiences, and things rapidly improved. Later in 1995, ‘Brown
Cyclopaedia’ was released on vinyl on Radioactive Rat in a quantity of 300
(subsequently re -issued on CD by vhf Records). I ask them about the record,
and the blasted folk vibe it seems to carry with it. “I think ‘Brown
Cyclopaedia’ served two functions,” says Jack, “it resolved a lot of ideas
brought forth in previous lineups, and a lot of ideas found during the
improvising on the record made their way in other forms to the next three
records. The main part of the record was mostly Mike's ideas with Pat and
myself adding suggestions and support. The bulk of the studio material had
been in Mike's repertoire for years, Pat and I added what we thought would
best make those songs sound unique to this particular lineup. Side four was
mostly material from previous lineups that we thought fit into the overall
picture of the recordings. ‘Absolution/Almighty’, ‘Green Flower’ and
‘Phantom Tick’ best exemplify our group approach at that time. As far as a
‘blasted folk vibe’ goes, it was purely accidental.” Mike doesn’t
necessarily agree. “I'm not sure it was accidental,” he says, “and it may be
intensifying. My wife Amy and I have been going to a lot of fiddlers
conventions this summer. Jack, his girlfriend Laurie and Pat joined us for
one in Mount Airy, North Carolina, last month. Pelt's banjo, guitar and
sarod excursions drew some interest and some skepticism...”
Their second album,
‘Burning/Filament/Rockets’ (Econogold 1996) was recorded soon after ‘Brown
Cyclopaedia.’ Notions of structure and melody apparent on the previous
outing are superseded by an unhurried spirit of psychic improvisation.
Long-form feedback journeys in the heart of the drone cleanse and heal as
the listener’s hand passes through the flame with a mysterious absence of
pain. Jack talks about the evolutionary process. “It was a very fruitful
time because we were able to use our musical ideas in a very free context.
Pieces were written and improvised in an immediate fashion. We would talk
about an idea minutes before we would play and then leave the tape running.
It was a time to fully connect on a musical level, establishing how we would
develop our methods of writing, playing and editing. We think the record
also set the stage for ‘Max Meadows’ which took a lot of those ideas from
‘Burning/Filament/Rockets’ and further refined them.”
Early 1997 saw the release
of two transcendent albums that seem to be the fullest realisation yet of
what the band have been working towards. “‘Snake To Snake’ demonstrates our
use of strange instrumentation and our interpretations of already existing
Pelt material,” Jack explains. “The track ‘Sun is Apart No. 2’ is our
interpretation of a song we wrote in 1995. The melody of both of the songs
are similar and the instrumentation is essentially the same, but what we
were doing was on this version was expanding the melody to loosen the
structures set forth in the previous version. ‘Gavanji 1 and 2’ has no
guitar at all and is a loose structure that we do not veer too far away
from. We wanted to use our new instruments and other players, Peter Neff on
bass hammer dulcimer and Ron Curry on violin. This tune also provided many
ideas that we used later in songs on ‘Max Meadows’.”
“During the Max Meadows
recordings we were more aware of using forms with our free musical ideas,”
continues Jack. “At this time we were no longer living within the same block
in Richmond, as we had been for the other two records, so we would get
together about twice a month and record. Due to the distance, we developed
some ideas independently and brought them within the group. After some time,
we had a lot of tape and we went through what we thought would be the best
selection of songs to put together. Also, before we left for our first tour
we tried out a couple of ideas that later became fully realized on the tour,
becoming ‘Samasara’, ‘Sunken’ and ‘ABC Delancey’. A lot of new instruments
like the beat frequency oscillator, the shenai and the bass resonator built
by Pat played a huge part in forming the songs on the record. I think ‘Max
Meadows’ is our best record so far because it is an apex of all of our ideas
from ‘Brown Cyclopaedia’ and ‘Burning/Filament/Rockets’ and is better
realised in a improvised rock context.”
When I spoke to Mike, Pat
and Jack, they had just returned from a brief tour of the US north-east. I
asked them how it went. “There was a lot of ensemble playing on this tour,”
says Pat. “Before we left, a friend of ours, Mick, had been sitting in on
tablas and Amy Shea had been providing drone violin during a couple of jam
and recording sessions. Beth Jones had been playing percussion with us
already for few months and played on ‘Hippy War Machine’. Since March, 1996
we have played together with Rake a couple of times for large ensemble
shows. The Pelt lineup with Amy, Mick and Beth (the so called ‘double trio’)
yielded a good recording our first date of our tour. The second date
consisted of Rake, Pelt, Mick and Beth. There is a really good recording of
that second night that may be released at some stage. Which is great”, Pat
adds, “because the Pelt/Rake collaborations have not been easy due to time,
distance and lack of agreement among members deciding which material is
suitable for release. A year ago, incidentally, Econogold records
commissioned a Pelt/Rake record and rejected what we sent them. In
retrospect, that may have been best because the more recent ensemble
sessions have been much better.”
“The next two dates were
at Flipped Out Records in Albany and Trash American Style in Danbury,
Connecticut,” says Mike. “We liked Jack's record store and the city of
Albany, but our show sucked. We sucked in Danbury as well, but Fudd (HCI and
employee of Trash) is a good friend of ours and we really enjoyed hanging
out with him. After our show in Danbury, Fudd showed us the infamous Chuck
Berry video, in which he urinates on a woman, along with other unmentionable
sexual acts. We only watched couple minutes because we found it to be a
little unnerving!”
The pinnacle of the tour
seems to have been their time in New York City, though. “NYC was probably
the crux of the tour,” ventures Jack. “We had met Donald Miller
(Borbetomagus, Lhasa Cement Plant, William Hooker, etc) a few months back
and seemed to hit it off. After our show, where we first met him, he had
some very encouraging comments which boiled down to ‘lay off the rock and
pop shit and focus more on the skronk and drone’. Mike and Donald kept up
correspondence and he continued to encourage us. When we were getting ready
to go on tour, we asked him if he could take us to LaMonte Young's Dream
House and if he wanted to sit in with us. We got together and played at the
Knitting Factory and had a great show, despite our van and all the gear
being towed while we sat in Donald's apartment (it cost us most of what we
made from the tour to get it released). The next day we went to the Dream
House. The room was huge with carpet covering the entire floor, two huge
tone generators in corners of the room, and the light had a mauve glow and
four Marion Zazeela light sculptures were hung symmetrically from the
ceiling. The light sculptures would move and dance from the light that
reflected on to the shapes, then on to the wall. These objects certainly
altered your visual perception, something akin to taking hallucinogenics,
which we weren't doing at the time. The sound produced in the room was
nothing like we've ever heard before. It is based on an interval that
produces many imagined tones when these two notes are playing simultaneously
for a long time. Just moving your head or switching your position in the
room would produce all kinds of different tones. By placing yourself in a
certain position, you could even isolate low or high tones coming from the
interval. You could even close your eyes and tell when other people were
moving around the room by the changes in sound. We had been working with
drones and have heard of Zazeela and Young's work, but to actually
experience their art was profound.”
“When we played that
night,” Jack continues, ”again with Donald, that experience could most
certainly be heard in what we were doing. Mike tried to resist the influence
of the Dream House in his playing but in the end said he just could not help
but succumb to the drone! Donald and his wife Cree were great hosts for
those two days. We learned a lot about music we had been interested in for
long time from him, ate some really great Indian food, drank a lot of beer
and listened to a lot of funny stories about his experiences with
Borbetomagus. We hope to work with him again soon because he taught us a lot
about music. We're very grateful to him for sharing that with us.”
“Pat was sitting on the
second -story balcony at my apartment a month or so ago listening to Tony
Conrad's "4 Violins" album,” adds Mike, “which has, I think anyhow, a lot of
sonic similarities to the Dream House effect. A mockingbird landed on a tree
limb near the railing and tried several times to whistle along with Tony,
attempting several very different registers and melodies, before getting
frustrated, flying down to the railing and screaming angrily at Pat. That's
a great endorsement of an album, I think.”
“Then we played Boston at
Twisted Village,” says Mike. “Wayne and Kate have a wonderful record shop
and they were very nice. They had heard about our troubles in NYC and took
up a collection for us. Then we went to Philly and played at a friend's
warehouse w/UN, Tower Recordings, and Tono Bungay. Philadelphia has always
been one of our favourite places to play because everyone we know there is
great and there are good record stores. Everyone we played with at the show
was great, we had a blast and we got paid well, then we went home.”
I ask them about how they
see the respective places of song-craft and improvisation in their work, now
and in the future. “Songs and improvisation are not necessarily
differentiated,” says Jack. ”We do play songs, but they are not in the
manner of pre-set or rehearsed riffs. Songs are based on certain moods or
feelings that they invoke, and it may sound totally different from time to
time. Prior to improvisation, there is usually a discussion of the
parameters we will be using. We leave the parameters loose enough so that if
our original plan isn't working, we can go on to something else or if other
unexpected ideas come into play that we like, they can get incorporated into
the overall plan. ‘Samsara’ is a number of ideas improvised that later take
on a song structure, whereas ‘Sunken’ has defined structures freely
improvised upon. During improvisation, we usually revolve around a tonal
centre in which a structure will emerge. It isn’t typical pre -planned
improvisational structures that dictate our approach, it is the tones,
phrases and themes that we have been working with and incorporating over the
years. Lately our main focus has been on intervals and how we can produce
the third voice which is so often found in Appalachian and Indian music, and
in works of the Theatre of Eternal Music, among others.” “When we first
started Pelt, we'd say a song was going well when we could hear instruments
that weren't being played,” adds Mike. “By focusing even more on multi
drones,” resumes Jack, “we have been meeting at a place which is slightly
off the tonal center, which is starting to produce tones that we haven't
worked with before. Pat right now is heavily immersed in Indian music and
has recently bought a sarod. Mike for a long time has been into Appalachian
mountain music and has become quite an accomplished banjo player. I'm really
into free jazz, especially the music of Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor and The
Revolutionary Ensemble. The preliminary recordings for our future projects
have produced some interesting results, due in part to our current interests
and ideas, both personal and communal.”
Finally, Mike sums up
their progress since forming the current line-up. “With the help of many
people, things have gone amazingly well for us. We've released four
full-length recordings, played what to me at least is a lot of shows - last
year was the first time I was able to play shows on more than two successive
nights - and travelled to some pretty interesting places. But, at the risk
of sounding like a department head, there is much still to do.”
Written, produced &
directed by Tony Dale, (c) Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1997.
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