listening to Mercy Choir’s great new album Upturned in Everest has had me thinking a lot about what the phrase “DIY” means. the album was written, arranged, performed, recorded, and mixed by Paul Belbusti in his own studio, but when you hear him talk about his music, he spends most of his time reflecting on the contributions of others. maybe those contributions are literal, as is the case with backing vocals by Lys Guillorn and Kierstin Sieser (more on that later), but they’re just as often contributions that are metaphorical or influential. and those influences come from a variety of corners of art: poetry, visual, or other fellow musicians. this sensibility struck a chord with me. it’s hard to get more “do it yourself” than Upturned in Everest, yet the emphasis is outward rather than inward for Mercy Choir.
but contradictions are not uncommon to Mercy Choir. the two strongest threads in Upturned in Everest seem to oppose one another — melody and noise. i don’t mean “noise” here in the sense that things are atonal, but rather, than small moments of coincidence are allowed to happen throughout Upturned in Everest, and that contrasts directly with strict control over melody that Belbusti uses. the very first song, “mocking bird” introduces us to this duality. a droning organ fades into the background, and an acoustic + vocal line takes the forefront. and if you aren’t paying attention, you might miss out that original drone, which stays present throughout the entire song. and every song is like this, to varying degrees. the backing track allows for improvisation and chance encounters, while Mercy Choir crafts melodies that are ready to be crowd singalongs.
in a musical landscape where “DIY” usually stands in as code for “recorded this on my phone” (not that there is anything wrong with that at all), Mercy Choir’s album feels like it’s performed and executed by a full-fledged band. the rhythm section, in particular, is vivid. it feels like each of these instruments is commandeered by a separate musician, speaking in their own dialects. but they’re not — it’s just one dude, spilling his heart out alone. it’s another contradiction. Upturned in Everest is a slickly-produced, expertly performed record that is also deeply personal, both in the sense that many of these songs mean a great deal to Belbusti, but that it is his vision from front to back. Kierstin Sieser (from Tiny Ocean) and Lys Guillorn, both New Haven musicians, add backing vocals throughout the album, beautifully harmonizing with Belbusti’s leads and adding to the album’s many textures. Erik Elligers adds some woodwinds on a few songs (his saxophone(s) on “the damned look up to paradise” are incredible), further enriching the record.
and that brings us to where we started. Upturned in Everest is an album by Mercy Choir. it could have been a record by Paul Belbusti, but it’s not. the identity of Mercy Choir — what it is, exactly — changes, just like its music, to reflect Belbusti’s own art. Upturned in Everest is a personal journey, but it’s also an expansive record with lyrics that are just as much about Belbusti’s inner life as they are about american life, the music industry, and history. it’s Mercy Choir’s best album.
oh, and another big thanks to Mercy Choir for the interview last week. check it out if you haven’t yet, after you listen to this record!
here are my three favorite moments of Upturned in Everest:
“do you know what i mean?”: released as the first single, this track is the most urgent of Upturned in Everest. it starts with a dance-ready beat (thumping bass and hand-claps) before the electric organ kicks in. Belbusti has fun with the lyrics here, giving a meta-commentary about the song itself, and he even points out how he’s broken the fourth-wall before the chorus arrives. but for as catchy and clever as “do you know what i mean?” is, what i like about it is how immediate it feels, like Mercy Choir is grabbing the listener by their lapels and pulling them out of their complacency. it’s a post-modern pop song that is both a forward-thinking anthem and a retro throwback; it’s no mistake that when Little Richard is name-checked, it’s in the context of a video on youtube.
“dance in love”: immediately after “do you know what i mean?” comes probably one of my favorite Mercy Choir songs ever written. it’s a gentle ballad, and its placement after the up-tempo “do you know what i mean?” gives the song a space that suspends the listener. and that space, is one of the things that i adore about both the song and Upturned in Everest. Mercy Choir is mindful not only about track sequencing, but the way that spaces within a song play out. for “dance in love”, it’s how a gap is left after the hurried pace of “do you know what i mean”, and how that gap is gently filled by a toy piano, a backing vocal harmony, and then a violin. you get the feeling, then, that each of these songs have their own geography.
“a weight has been lifted”: the longest song on the record, this rhythm-driven song blurs the line between tone poem, jazz song, and stripped-bare pop. Belbusti’s lyrics, in all their surreal description, take center stage: “i fired a pistol in the sky / and it made me feel like a real tough guy / but when i looked up to say goodbye / the bullet fell into my eye”. part dream, part damning satire, his turns of phrase command your attention — i had a similar feeling with the description of Little Richard in “do you know what i mean?”, or the imagery of “Wash Away”. on many of these songs, Belbusti’s craft as a poet shine through.
