“The ebb and flow of Arbouretum's music, still rooted in folk but flaring into twin-guitar noise-rock, is often astounding...Think Will Oldham levitating into Crazy Horse or Comets on Fire†UNCUT 4/5
Friday July 24th at Miss Peapod’s, Penryn
Arbouretum
plus support from Red River Dialect
“…a slice of dazzling alternative rock. It’s recorded easy on the gain but loud as fuck; lysergic bursts of warm guitar vibrate snare skins. Arbouretum owe as much to the English delivery of Martin Carthy as they do to the beatnik languor of Fred Neil and the polychromatic textures of J Mascis†Plan B magazine.
Only 100 tickets available, on sale now for £8 from Jam, Miss Peapod’s & The Poly 01326 212300
Click here for secure booking via The Poly
Click on the photo to visit their myspace page…
Having just finished a US tour supporting Sub Pop's Band of Horses, including a date at the prestigious Carnegie Hall, Arbouretum take a trip from their native Baltimore to begin their UK tour in Penryn, before playing Birmingham's Supersonic festival and a handful of other shows across the country, after which they are heading to the continent. I would have to agree with John McEntire, of Arbouretum's labelmates Tortoise, when he says that Arbouretum's new, critically acclaimed album Song of the Pearl is "like listening to a desolate landscape where a sense of foreboding permeates every part of the atmosphere†but that description doesn't quite do them justice.
Arbouretum - Mohammed's Hex and Bounty from Jessica Lauretti on Vimeo .
Perhaps it's the acid-bent solo's scrawled all over the spaces between the vivid lyricism, or the stretches of blissful space that make them something more than your average "serious rock-band", there is an earthy looseness that shakes off the dull self-pity that afflicts so many bands. Dave Heumann (the songwriter and guitarist at the heart of the band) says the time he spent playing guitar with Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's band was a turning point in his musical career, "It took hanging out with guys like Will to really understand how to have a life playing music in this more tangible way".
Their hometown is becoming the focus of a lot of media attention with a variety of acts like the Dan Deacon Ensemble and Pontiak achieving the kind of recognition which can turn a town into the latest big "scene", for better or worse. Arbouretum features a sometime member of another of Baltimores finest acts, Beach House and Vice magazine correctly likens them to " the mantric ur-song of fellow Baltimorians Lungfish welded to the flannel-shirted muscle of Creedence and Crazy Horse played with the fervour of folk-rock.†We don't know what an "ur-song" is, but we believe it might be some kind of heavy trip...
Down by the Fall Line by Arbouretum from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo .
So we hope to see you there at Miss Peapod's on Friday July 24th, Red River Dialect will be playing a support slot, you can hear a few of their songs by clicking on their icon in our top friends.
Here is some more of what the press had to say about 'Song of the Pearl'.
“surging psych-rock infused on tracks such as "Down by the Fall Line" with the courtly manner of the 1960s UK folk-rock tradition. It's most effectively employed on the opener "False Spring", an invitation to "come along, let's ride together" delivered by Heumann with a stern, austere intonation recalling Richard Thompson, over droney guitar textures that explode into a berserk acid-rock break of juddering guitar noise. It's one of the most startling, insidiously attractive things I've heard this year.†The Independent
"The expository, yet emotionally resonant lyrics of Dave Heumann at times recall songwriters such as Richard Thompson, Fred Neil, and even Bob Dylan. It should then come as no surprise that the transition to the album's closer, "Tomorrow is a Long Time", an early Dylan song, is seamless. The song is almost unrecognizable in its new arrangement whose deliberate and deep rhythms coupled with Heumann's haunting vocals capture the lament" From Thrill Jockey
“...US psychedelic folk/rock...with its roots in hardcore and post-rock. Arbouretum are songwriters for those who shy away from the centrality and ego of singer-songwriter figures, who choose, instead, to marvel at the secret life of the song itself and to seek out the spark at its core; and this is a record you’ll save for an easy listen on a dark day, and – moved and illuminated – suddenly discover that it is nothing of the sort.†– The Quietus
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New Release on Lono
Mining For Sound
by Plunge Pool
Available now
We’ve been riding on the heaviest three guitar and drums record to have ever seeped out of Penryn’s soil for over a year now, now is the time to release it. The band spent less than twenty hours in the same room together and over half of this record was improvised. The remainder are semi composed tracks that were first take and only take recordings.
Up above we have scrubbed the board clean and provided you with three samples of the album, albeit at myspace quality.
Give or take, it’s an hour long over the five tracks. Amongst the battering of the Dead C/Sunburned inspired back alley blood transfusions there is some looser vibrating going on, some teetering classic rock and desert excursions. Yelped voices and queer resonance become indistinguishable from each other. Once they snag on each other and begin to harmonize they take root and breed. The band consisted of Richard Chamberlain, Simon Drinkwater, Dan Kinsky and David Morris. They recorded the album to a pair of microphones at Troubador studios in Falmouth, Cornwall in December 2007.
The cdr is released on Monday 16th February 2009, we are now taking orders. The initial 50 copies come in a textured card digipak with 4 panel artwork, the remaining 150 will come in jewel cases.
£5 + postage options