Baltimore is a strange and enchanting place. Alongside the rampant crime and abject poverty lives a community of artists and musicians as odd and intriguing as you’re likely to find. It’s a city where the line between the urban and rural blurs, where banjo and Jew’s harp are as much a part of the musical lexicon as guitar and drums.
Out of this creative stew comes Human Bell, the work of multi-instrumentalists Dave Heumann and Nathan Bell. Best known for his work on bass with Baltimore’s Lungfish, Bell’s musical breadth stretches a lot wider than his former career. He’s recorded with more than a dozen bands (including P.W. Long, Mighty Flashlight, and Television Hill) and has made quite a bit of oddball music on his own.
Heumann is nearly as prolific, having played with Cass McCombs, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Anomoanon and Papa M in addition to his work as leader of Arbouretum. On this self-titled album, Bell and Heumann borrow some of the repetitive drone of Lungfish, as well as elements of folk, country, and bluegrass from further down the I-95 corridor.
The pair shares guitar duties, melding the nomenclature of backwoods Maryland and the South seamlessly with the minor-key textures and delicate sonic layers of Isis’ quieter side. From song to song, the album sways between noodly blues picking and humid atmospheric numbers. “Hymn America” begins as a lonesome blues riff infused with a driving rhythm, building to a dual-guitar jam.
At their best, as on “Splendor and Concealment,” the two guitarists gel into a trance-like call and response. With no rhythm section, the song has the feel of a front-porch blues duel between old friends, which is what it is at its essence. With Human Bell, the two have made an instrumental record that is raw and complex but weird enough not to drift into the background.
– Oakland L. Childers
Human Bell: www.myspace.com/humanbell
Thrill Jockey: www.thrilljockey.com