One listen to Ann Arbor’s old-timey band Orpheum Bell and it’s clear the description “country and eastern” hits the nail right on the head.

“That’s just fun wordplay on country and western,” said Orpheum Bell co-founder Serge van der Voo. “We have this Americana influence coming in, and then we also have this kind of Baltic, Gypsy, minor-chord thing. We fuse them together, so that’s how 'country and eastern' became our little elevator pitch.”

Orpheum Bell plays at The Ark Friday night.

Besides van der Voo (double bass, percussion), Orpheum Bell includes co-founder Aaron Klein (vocals, banjo, ukuleles, guitars); Annie Crawford (vocals, violins); Katie Lee (vocals, violin, banjo, ukulele, autoharp, saw) and Michael Billmire (accordion, trumpet, shepherd harp, mandolin). Orpheum Bell has no official drummer, but adds a percussionist from time to time.

The fivesome — with its catalog of lullabies, stomps, dirt-road ballads, and Gypsy suites and waltzes, draws from a number of musical styles, including the Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt.

“I kind of grew up with Django in the background — my dad was a huge fan,” acknowledged van der Voo. “Those bass lines for me became this great style — they swing a bit and are ahead of the beat at times. So that became something that I was into … definitely those influences are in there from the core.”

Reinhardt is not the only act from the past to influence Orpheum Bell’s sound.

“Some of the songs definitely mix in some kind of Andrew Sisters or Boswell Sisters, where you get the three-part harmony; some of those influences come out … definitely some of the older country from the late ‘40s-early ‘50s. … We’ve stayed acoustic, we haven’t really electrified, we’re trying to get this raw, rustic sound across. Cuban music is a recent influence in our new songs.”

Besides employing more traditional instruments, Orpheum Bell’s use of mechanical, horned violins adds to the band’s old-world sound.

“Before the advent of the microphone, the Stroh family invented these cellos, violas and violins with horns — there’d be whole orchestras of these things in Germany that could be heard without mics,” van der Voo explained. “They have a larger horn that you put out front towards audience and smaller horn that points back at you, kind of like a little monitor horn, so you can hear what’s playing. … We really like the tone of it, it has this kind of freaky AM sound and it works well in certain tunes. We use it on ‘Rabbit Field,’ ‘Pearls’ is a really good example, also ‘Metropolitan Waltz.’ They are authentic from the period, and it’s another great visual aspect — it always brings people around,” he added.

Their music has been called “rural poetry,” and van der Voo said the description is apt.

“Somebody made that quote based on Aaron’s lyrics and I think it does fit. If you listen to ‘Rabbit Field’ or ‘Goodbye is the Sweetest Word,’ or even ‘Pearls’ — it definitely fits,” he said.

Van der Voo and Klein, from Michigan originally, met in Chicago and eventually returned to the Wolverine State.

“In 2005 we started writing songs together and then built Orpheum Bell by adding several members. Since then a lot of people have come and gone, but Aaron and I have stayed with it. We’re still the original members. Being in Ann Arbor, we’ve had a lot of success finding the right people to move the sound forward,” he said.

The group’s name doesn’t have any deep meaning. Rather, Orpheum Bell was “just kind of a word play on some old names were poking around … it had the right kind of visual aesthetic we were looking for for our sound,” van der Voo said.

By van der Voo’s count, this is the sixth time Orpheum Bell has played The Ark. Lac La Belle and Danny Kline — who van der Voo said influenced the Orpheum Bell sound — will open the show.

“Danny Kline, formerly of Delta 88, we’re friends with him … they play mellow, subtle, tasteful stuff. We wanted to kind of follow that, have that sound. Now he’s doing a solo thing, he’s going to be there and will sit in on a couple of tunes. Then Lac Labelle, they’re from Detroit, they are doing an Americana roots thing. I think it will be a good mix of bands that night.”

Although it hasn’t been that long since “Pearls” came out, van der Voo said another album is already in the works.

“We’re going to analog tape this time, which we think will add to the warmth of the instruments, it captures them pretty well,” he explained. “We’ve spent a couple days (at local recording studio Big Sky) already and have been pretty happy with the results.”

Fans of the band can expect to see some musical growth reflected on the new CD.

“We’re also always trying to branch out a little more in terms of songwriting and new instruments. Mike Billmire picked up a glockenspiel as well as a xylophone late last year, so those are making their way into the songs more and more. We’ve also started working with Mike Shimmin (Millish, Red Sea Pedestrians), who has played with several bands around here, and he’s adding a great deal. We hope to have this new album out in about a year.”

Roger LeLievre is a freelance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com.