I am so excited to be writing about this album. The Gloom Balloon himself, Patrick R. Tape Fleming, came into my ears solely through his mention of the Elephant 6, and I could not be happier. I originally learned of this album through a Facebook E6 fan group. Someone had posted an album that they had picked up and noted that the entire B-side was dedicated to The Bill Doss, of E6 legend. Bill Doss (RIP), for those sadly unaware, is a founding father of the Elephant 6, playing and producing with such bands as The Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, Chocolate USA, Black Swan Network, Sunshine Fix, The Gerbils, Casper & the Cookies, Synthetic Flying Machine, and Neutral Milk Hotel ( the list goes on). Without a doubt I am a huge fan of his work. Therefore, my glee was at 11 when I heard of Pat’s record, and immediately ordered it through him directly! Also, as my favourite aspect of my record collections are the links that bind them all together, Pat was also a member of the stellar Poison Control Center, of which I picked up Sad Sour Future based on Jason Nesmith’s (Casper & the Cookies) recommendation. Needless to say, Gloom Balloon belongs in my ( and likely your) collection.

What I remember first noticing was the look of the record sleeve. I recall loving the design, feeling as though it was modelled to look “classic-retro” and legitimately thought it had to have been released in a different era, which made me even more excited as I imagined this being a tribute to a young and blossoming Bill. I knew nothing of Gloom Balloon, this was a unheard of artifact full of mystery and potential. Alas, I soon discovered it was released in 2013 and is a beautiful testament to the magic Bill possessed and shared. I went in with high hopes, and left overwhelmingly impressed.

A-Side—- You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Disaster

Strings, beautiful exploding strings. “I am The luckiest motherfucker in the world.” This song immediately connected with me. The lyrics gut punch you while you look up at the beautiful music emanating around you. Although there is a sense of broken-heartedness, there is also a celebration of realizing how lucky the singer is. Yes he may be a fucking asshole, a motherfucker he admits, yet he considers himself incredibly lucky to have found someone who understands him. The strings get spacey and distorted and we’re met with a minimalist return to Pat’s voice. Creaking, tuning ticks permeate Pat’s admission, ” I am the luckiest fucking fool around”. Pat’s words resonate with me to a haunting degree, ” I don’t know why I am so down, I am the luckiest fucking fool in town”. I realize, OFTEN, just how gracious and happy I should be yet, there are the dark days, the stupid irritability and frustration that permeates privileged life. Admittedly, my friends often comment on how excited and passionate I can be about mundane things ( I owe that to the revelation gifted to me by the meister milk himself, Jeff Mangum: How strange it is to be anything at all). I too, am a lucky motherfucker, who often will be the one appreciating the smallest of details and commenting to my circle of friends how lucky we are to still be close, to be where we are, to have sight and sound and that today is the most important day in our lives simply because it is today. However, I am also the first to speak about the crushing weight of existence, the anxiety of what-ifs and how-comes. I love life, and maybe that’s why I’m afraid of it. Not afraid to live it, definitely not the case, but certainly overly sensitive to the mechanisms at play.

“I’m not a seagull I’m a brokenhearted black crow…”

Thea seagull is a reference to Poison Control Center’s song of the same name. Pat’s therianthropic dying crow, having it’s final breathes as the grass grows, elicits powerful images of somber scenes, decay, but also growth and sacrifice ( the bird’s body benefits the earth). This is something I often think about, that at the very least, my body and waste can benefit the universe. This idea reminds of another favourite of mine, AJJ’s Stormy The Rabbit:

And I’d like to be

A big ball of meat

That bees can buzz around and eat when I die

So that I might be granted one sense of purpose

The sense of worthlessness and unavoidably causing harm yet, accepting that death serves a promised purpose is a very challenging idea to grapple with, sometimes reassuring, sometimes overwhelming.

” Your nervous breakdown doesn’t deserve a sound, but if you want a soundtrack…… I got your back, but please hurry, I’m fading to black” Booming bass, percussion, and well… LAZER SOUNDS build while strings still delicately play.

What I love most about Gloom Balloon is the unabashed joy he shares about being a music fan, name-dropping influences and sharing in the joy, speaking about how certain artists have moved him: Van Morrison, Emitt Rhodes (which I need to thank Pat for, as I had never heard of him before….seriously go listen to Live Till You Die and You Should Be Ashamed, they may help you get a better sense of where Pat’s coming from on this side of the album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CvzawbXLS8 ) and Carol Queen, who I can only gather is an author, editor, sociologist and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement, just on side A.

Side A is essentially one piece broken into four “SONGS FOR A BAROQUE HEART”. Which is not only a GREAT play on words but an amazingly succinct summary of Side A

Side B

Today is Sunday the 18th of June, 1:28 PM, and I am depressed. It may be coming down from the two weeks of drinking nearly every day ( not the norm, I assure you, but social events, for me anyways, equals drinking), or the increased discomfort I feel about my body’s current state. Maybe it’s just a dark cloud passing that is not a consequence of my actions but some inevitable, natural hurt that I am gifted with due to my body’s chemistry and thought schemas. I am the luckiest motherfucker, yet I am loathing in self-pity and unplaced guilt. I was so looking forward to this side of the album, to write about my favourite subject, THE ELEPHANT 6, yet now I find it hard to drop the needle. It is currently hovering over the spinning record waiting to make contact but I’m not ready. I want to get through this, I don’t want to put it off anymore but there is a gravitational pull bringing me down and away from this. I’m currently freshly out of the shower, having washed the sweat from the the hot yoga class I dragged myself to. It helped. The sun is coming through the window to my right, the record player between us. It’s time to press play.

Brain bleaching ( in the most complimentary way) E6-ish collage comes out through the speakers. Bill can be heard ( courtesy of a WFMU interview) speaking about sitting on the floor with a 4-track and ” just play”. A California Demise through Bloodshot eyes. An incredible title referencing the first Olivia Tremor Control (OTC) EP and the songs of the same name. Pat’s calls his muse a “Holiday Surprise” a beautiful term referencing the OTC song and the E6 orchestra tours under the same name. Some absolutely beautiful bass thumps with some horns gaining momentum and imagination.

Will C., You cut me like a Matisse

A reference to Bill’s partner in OTC, Will Cullen Hart, this second tracks starts with a looping ” Will you,Will you, Will You” and then, like many of the Apples in Stereo albums, we hear an older recording sample of a voice claiming:

“Bear each other’s burdens as we share in-“ Then suddenly the voice melts away, sentence unfinished, to give way to drums looping and the wall of sound that follows before returning to that introductory loop but slightly altered to “Bill you, Bill you, Bill you”. I may be hearing this wrong, but I like to think this is what’s going on.

Some amazing horns help the transition into the next track ( Chanteuse Raison d’etre) and it feels like a bright morning in a dewey yard, maybe one you’ve just woken up on from the night before. “there’s a time for letting go, forget the things you used to know”…. ” In a crowded room I still feel alone”. Much like Black Foliage, the final OTC album, there is a lot of revision and splicing earlier parts (Side 1) and manipulating it to make something new yet eerily familiar.

” and there is a reason for everyone” Such a powerful line, definitely something I can hear Will or Bill singing on an OTC song. This is a line that resonates with me and my line of work. Without getting into detail, I work with a population that is often forgotten, feared, hated, abused, and cast-aside but deserve, and need to be reminded of their worth and potential.

Goodbye Wren, a call-back to one of my all-time favourite E6 songs, Hideaway by OTC, which ends with “So long Sehku, Goodbye Wren”, which if you’ve ever heard, you definitely sung while reading the lyrics. For Gloom Balloon, this track is a short, 30-second collage that bridges into the next wonderful track:

Summer Buzz and Summer Fervor

Holy fuck, Pat nails the E6 sound. The guitar has a unquestionable OTC sound to it. There is palpable grieving here. Beautiful grieving and quasi-eulogy. I’ve done some crazy shit, but I want to do some crazy shit with you.

Pat mentions the beauty of summer songs from the likes of the Beach Boys, and how Bill sung them like no other. This brings me back to a very special road trip I took with some friends while recording our conversation and playing Dusk at Cubist Castle in the background. We were headed to a city in Quebec and the leaves were all turning orange as we drove along beautiful bodies of water and hills on the way to reunite with a friend we hadn’t seen in some time.

Macy’s Momentum is Gaining

A reference to Hilltop Procession (Momentum Gaining), from OTC’s Black Foliage, this track serves Gloom Balloon the opportunity to explore the various recording sampling that OTC and Neutral Milk Hotel (on the earlier cassettes and Everything Is 7″) incorporated. Pat is having a conversation, although distorted to the point of being undecipherable, except for the closing loop of Macy Gacke signing-off with “I love you”.

Fix the Sunshine, the albums closer

The title references Bill’s project The Sunshine Fix and in pure E6 fashion, we have some heavy lyrics set to beautiful music, embracing our sometimes harsh reality “If I could Fix the Sunshine, you know I’d try, but all the children in the world are one day gonna die, and so will you and I”. Here is the most straight-forward love letter to Bill. Reminding us all to let those we love know that we love them. The liner notes share more detail, speaking about Jason Nesmith (Casper) and Pat’s phone conversation after the news of Bill’s passing was announced, and how Jason expressed that he just wished he could of told Bill he loved him. I’m now grounded. There isn’t much more I feel like putting down here. This is a beautiful powerful album, and I’m feeling good and may go out for a walk. Thank you Pat, even though we have never met, I love you.

That’s all for now. I am happy to announce that the next post will be an interview with Pat about the Elephant 6, this album, and his upcoming one coming September 1st from Maximum Ames, a label whose releases I’m sure will be mentioned here in the future (seriously, go check out Immediate Family by Mumford’s, it, just like this album, is a solid 10).

https://gloomballoon.bandcamp.com/

PS: Here is a photo from the aforementioned road trip.