Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up

The national dish of Belize is a diverse mixture of ingredients: pig’s tail, potatoes, plantains, bananas, boiled eggs, yams, and whole fish, thrown in a pot and stewed to perfection. They call it a boil-up. Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up combines equal parts R&B, calypso, disco, funk, reggae, bruckdown, soul, folk, and other sounds scraped off the musical pantry’s bottom shelf, though it’s anything but leftovers. See the Harmonettes’ speedy, robustly recorded take on “Shame, Shame, Shame” or tropical pulse and electro stabs on Lord Rhaburn’s “Disco Connection.” Before our very own Rob Sevier showed up on Belize’s sand-swept shores, little was known of the tiny Central American nation’s vibrant musical history. Since then, we’ve scoured the catalog of Belize’s lone record label, Compton Fairweather’s C.E.S., for choice delicacies derived from American genres gone mutant under intense Belizean sunlight, gathering a hurricane of battered photos, album sleeves, and ephemera, amassing a sound souvenir that’s more like a recorded jaunt through a dance-infected Belize long gone. Our sturdy gatefold double-LP edition includes two bonus tracks...dashes of extra flavoring you won’t find plated by any other Numero product.