Pelt - Reticence / Resistance LP

For almost thirty years and over the course of countless releases, the American band Pelt has traversed non-idiomatic improv, Eastern-tinged psychoacoustic drones, and—in its earliest incarnation—noisy post rock. The group once counted among its ranks the late guitarist Jack Rose, whose spirit continues to imbue Pelt’s music with a sound that is as forward-thinking as it is refreshingly unpretentious.

Like fellow travelers Daniel Bachman, Paul Metzger, Bill Orcutt, and R. Keenan Lawler, the members of Pelt clearly possess a firm grasp of the American folk vernacular, and similarly honor this history without resorting to pastiche or cliché. It is this fundamental understanding of the art of the recent past that informs Pelt’s music, which one might call “Primitive-Futurist”; a Fourth World approach suggesting a Cumberland Gap Pandit Pran Nath.

Reticence Resistance was recorded live at London’s Café Oto over two nights in February of 2017. The album features the core Pelt lineup of Patrick Best on Grand Piano and harmonium, Mike Gangloff on fiddle, Nathan Bowles on percussion and banjo, and Mikel Dimmick on harmonium, bowls, and bells. The capacious, inviting sound of the performances was captured without effects, using only microphones on the acoustic instruments.