Over the past decade, Duluth-based band Glitteratti graduated from playing Americana-flavored covers to a good-rockin’, easy-groove energy. Singer, songwriter, and driving force Marc Gartman leads the supergroup lineup with ties to Trampled by Turtles and Watchhouse (fka Mandolin Orange), which last put out an album, Among the Wild, right before the pandemic hit in 2020.

When it came time to produce new material, they switched things up. Gartman says he considered releasing their new songs as a two-sided, full-length album. But band members Dave Carroll and Tim Saxhaug, the Trampled by Turtles component, saw the music in two separate places. Two EPs, Rectify! and A Delicate Ballast, arrived on digital platforms in July and September, and they are separated by a galaxy of sound.

“I had a concept for the past year or two that our next thing would be putting out a sort of rock record, the Rectify! thing,” says Gartman. “Then, at the same time, I knew I had this idea for a ‘Side B’ that would be sort of a night record.”

That idea became A Delicate Ballast.

“The intention in the beginning was to do a straight up vinyl record. Then call it ‘Day and Night.’ That was the basic thing,” says Gartman. “But as things were going on some people felt that these were two completely different things and by putting them together there would be something lost. So that was very real.”

Carroll says the Rectify! recording process was similar to past Glitteratti work, and it produced an outcome similar to their past two records. The six tracks are tight and nod to the glory of classic rock. To prepare, Gartman delivered a handful of original songs and the group developed them together in the studio.

Carroll straps on the electric guitar and takes center stage throughout. His work shines on the opening track “I Don’t Know It” and roars through the shouter “Joseah!” Drummer Kyle Keegan makes the most of his time working with Saxhaug on bass to slow-build “Another Woman” and anchor the Afro-funk flavored William Onyeabor cover, “When the Going is Smooth and Good.”

The process and sound of A Delicate Ballast went in a different direction, pushing the music into a darker place filled with soft strings, haunted vocals, and the soul of Roger Waters. It’s a quiet, meditative headphone trip that floats like an untethered satellite on a trip to the dark side of the moon.

Gartman wrote pretty much every note of music, including guitar and bass parts, before the band booked time with Trampled by Turtles fiddle player Ryan Young at his Neon Brown studio in the Twin Cities.

“[Marc] sent me the demos and I was pretty floored. It was just really different from anything we’d done, just really cool sounds, so that was exciting to begin with,” says Carroll.

Each band member recorded individually on separate days. Keegan sat out the session.

“We were just like, ‘Let’s make this sparse,’ and give it a lot of space and have fun with whatever percussion we had and work with what was available,” Carroll continues. “It was exciting just getting in there and having a totally new sound to play around with and work on.”

Saxhaug says the recording experiment captured the thrilling sound of a loose Velvet Underground rhythm section and surreal Pink Floyd sonics. “I really liked how spaced out it was,” he says. “It gives us a chance to feature Marc’s songs in a different way. Because the rest of our albums were like a jam band without the jams. When I listen to the electric ones I’m like, ‘Oh, this is the Phish in us coming out.’ [A Delicate Ballast] is something else.”

Gartman’s gentle voice and nylon-stringed guitar are all over the record. Lush backing vocals, slow-motioned electric guitar, and eerie piano fills give the music a psychedelic ‘70s sound. Young supplies varied string orchestration and subtle percussion work.

“Rough and Simple” is a highlight. The song features spacey call-and-response vocals, jittery violin, and a disorienting instrumental break. Gartman sings, “A tightrope balance keeps me in check. A delicate ballast to keep me at rest.” The EP closes with “If,” a straight-up Pink Floyd cover from its 1971 album Atom Heart Mother.

Gartman says that early-’70s Pink Floyd sound inspired him to write A Delicate Ballast as he pushed himself to learn a complicated finger picking guitar style. “I’m just a strumming guitar player and I always felt daunted by [finger picking]. I never thought my rhythm was good enough to put on record,” he says. “So I had to just put in straight time, you know, gym time, with my fingers.”

Yes, it’s the same band, but on these two releases, they’re exercising different muscles.