Arborea

Arborea latest Live set on WFMU with host Irene Trudel June 2nd, 2008 (split session with Fern Knight)
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'“When you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone, in the air, you can never capture it again.”- Eric Dolphy
'Wayfaring Summer' limited first edition available through CD Baby OR Apple itunes.
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REVIEWS
~DIRTY LINEN MAGAZINE~
Combining the common emotional thread running through ancient British murder ballads and the more evocative music found deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Maine folk duo Arborea creates timeless music, haunted by deep shadows. Named after a species of trees, Arborea comprises Buck Curran on acoustic, slide, and electric guitars, flutes, banjo, and vocals, along with Shanti Curran, who sings lead and plays banjo, percussion, guitar, bowed strings, and ukulele. Their songs are bathed in shimmering harmonics, spectral slide, and positively spooky banjo. The songs also evoke a kind of mysterious quality, in which you are never quite sure what the songs are about, but they seem to touch a place in your soul that instinctively understands.
~TERRASCOPE REVIEW~
ARBOREA – WAYFARING SUMMER
Take a handful of politically sharp lyrics, hone them on a pedal-driven sharpening block in the lea of the old tumbledown barn until the point shines through, set them to melodies so intimate they sound like firelight whispers and moody, atmospheric instrumentation that soothes like a bubblebath and the result is Arborea. This ethereal duo of Buck Curran (who majors on guitars, bowed strings and vocals) and Shanti Curran (vocals, banjo and percussion) hail from Maine, USA and musically hail from a similar gene-pool to Marissa Nadler, especially, and the Appalachian folk musings of the Spectral Light & Moonshine Snakeoil Jamboree (or indeed any one of the several outfits the godfather of psych-holler folk, Timothy Renner, cares to adorn). There’s also a touch of classic British folksong bubbling through like blobs of methane emerging from a witchy well: ‘Beirut’ for example is pure Vashti Bunyan, at once heartbreaking and visceral. The title song ‘Wayfaring Summer’ is an instrumental tour de force of beautifully paced acoustic guitar with a banjo hovering around and through the melody like a moth drawn to a light. ‘River and Rapids’ could easily be a Charalambides outtake, psychedelic acid-folk peddling shadows, shades of meaning and feeling others could never express in words let alone a web of stateley electric music, while ‘Alligator’ finds Shanti murmuring seductively, implying and evading with a coiling, smoky vagueness, and ‘Dance, Sing, Fight’ finds the couple evoking sublime hallucinations in both vocal and instrumental splashes of lightness and shade.
Two-thirty am and I feel like going for a walk amongst the trees. So that’s why they’re called Arborea. Magic you can visit, again and again. (Phil McMullen)
~SIMON LEWIS~(Editor of Terrascope Reviews)
ARBOREA-WAYFARING SUMMER CD
Mixing the fragile tenderness of Nick Drake, the earthy sounds of British folk, and some lovely Appalachian rhythms, this album is the perfect way to end the year, full of memories of summer and promises yet to be made. The simple pleasures of the instrumental “Wayfaring Summer” leads us in gently, as delicate as a breeze swept meadow, the stringed instruments blending wonderfully to produce a full and evocative whole. This feeling of peace is continued on “River and Rapids”, the gentle voice and banjo overlaid with droning strings that add just the right amount of mystery, the song slowly building a rhythm that intensifies the sound further still. Sounding like an outtake from a Sharon Kraus album “Wake Up, Little Sparrow” has a nursery rhyme feel, with some particularly tender vocals from Shanti Curran adding depth to the song, whilst the simple and hypnotic playing is ably handled by Buck and Shanti. A change of pace is heralded by “Alligator”, the song driven along by nagging strings that pulse with life yet retain the intimacy that is one of the albums strengths. On “Shagg Pond Revival”, the duo sounds as if they are covering an ancient folk song, whilst “On To The Shore” is a song so perfect that I wish I had written it, sounding like Jefferson Airplane at their gentlest, the sunshine sparkling on crystal water. One of the saddest songs I have heard for a long time, “Beirut” is etched with tears, the haunting guitar motif drawing you into the words with exquisite precision, before “Rain” continues the mood in strange instrumental fashion. A change of sound is created on “Dance, Sing, Fight” when Buck adds his soft vocal talents to the song, the two voices creating a whole new sound that adds variety and is something I would like to hear more of. Finally “Coda” rounds of the album, a disjointed instrumental that becomes clearer each time you hear it until it suddenly ends. Fans of Espers, Sharron Kraus, Nick Drake, or gentle acoustic music in general should have no hesitation in checking this album out. Straight into my favourite albums of the year, no contest. (Simon Lewis)
~ELECTRIC ROULETTE REVIEW~
My life has just changed forever. Why? Because I can't be certain that I will hear a better album than Arborea's 'Wayfaring Summer' in all my days. The band, consisting of the supreme talents of Shanti and Buck Curran, have released the best new record I've heard in years. In short, the band's debut, 'Wayfaring Summer', is a masterpiece. Imagine Pentangle at the peak of their powers, melting into the dustbowl ballads of Woody Guthrie. Sound good? You're not even close. Arborea have created a modern classic.The whole LP is an epic journey through love, nature and voice. It's nigh on impossible to pick a stand out track off this wonderful long player. The fact that this is a debut LP makes it all the more astonishing. A track like 'Rivers and Rapids', which is a psychedelic folk treasure see Shanti's voice tripping out through a bewitching, beguiling music that is as cultured and delicate as anything you have ever heard. Far from being a gentle affair, the album veers from doe-eyed beauty to siren-like sexiness. 'Alligator' is, without question, one of the sexiest grooves you will ever hear in your life. Shanti purrs and sways down by the water and there is no doubt that by the close of the track, you will have a crush to topple all your teenage fantasies. Buck, Shanti's partner in crime, only guides the sassiness further into sex with a purring instrumentation.It's difficult to talk about this album without becoming too flowery. However, this is the kind of LP that has you reaching for, and running out of, superlatives. One track that has this writer flailing on his back in complete submission is the staggering 'Dance, Sing, Fight'. The couple both sing in beautiful harmony and with each note, your heart actually breaks in two. 'Shagg Pond Revival' is another breathtaking song that sounds as if it belongs on the Island Pink label in the late sixties alongside Nick Drake, Fairport and John and Beverley Martyn. To hold the band up in such a (pink) light would normally be unfair, but this is an LP that can easily take the strain of such weighty competition. This is unquestionably one of the finest folk albums that I've ever heard. The whole LP is a wonderful journey through rural folk that will enchant you on first listen, and then, it will refuse to let you go. It's astonishing that, with a recent folk boom that Arborea aren't being sainted right now. They have created a perfect and timeless record that will bewitch those fortunate enough to hear it.Great news is that Arborea will be touring the UK and Europe in October. There should be no doubt in your mind that you're going to buy this album, so click here and spend the best $12 of your life. If you don't buy it now, you'll only be paying £200 for it in 10 years time. A perfect and staggering record.
DREAM MAGAZINE REVIEW
Arborea Wayfaring Summer (Summer Street, www.myspace.com/summerstreetrecords www.myspace.com/arborea2) Arborea is Buck Curran and Shanti Curran from Lewiston, Maine. Buck plays guitars, bowed strings, flutes and some banjo, and Shanti provides banjo, bowed strings, and percussion, they both sing; though Shanti sings the majority of the songs. Their songs are low key intimate spellcasting affairs; the fact that they are a couple might help to explain the seamless organic blending of their music together. Conjuring truly transportational magic out of the simplest ingredients. Their songs might be a hundreds of years old, and there’s little here to lock them into any moment other than forever; despite the atypical topicality of Dance, Sing, Fight. Alligator sounds like Fred Neil backing Marissa Nadler. They also bring to mind Josephine Foster, Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, the folky side of MV & EE, Timothy Renner’s various incarnations, and other similar magician/musicians. A beautifully recorded acoustic-based gem of an album with no weak track amidst the ten they grace us with.
George Parsons
Dream Magazine 8
www.dreamgeo.com
~Pyschedelic Homestead, Belgium, Gerald Van Waes~
Wayfaring Summer (US,2006)****
Colourful shades with berries, calmy sitting down in a protected area, where there's nothing to prove, this duo succeeds to create music and a new folk form in their environment in the same way like the Appalachian music was developed in a social and traditional form. This is much sweet-moodier. While aware of what's happening in the world (wars, misunderstandings about differences of populations,..) Arborea provides peaceful wishes from the spring muze deep-in-the-woods. Musically we hear acid-folk visions with tiny melodic improvisations based upon evolutions of looped melodic tunes made from sweet folk guitar pickings mostly, or rhythm guitars, banjo, and a bit of slide guitar..with a few handclap-like rhythms (1,2), and songs, which are completely in balance with the soft freedom aspect of the mood improvisations. Singer Shanti has a very beautiful delicate folk/singer-songwriter voice, which also in duet, harmonizes perfectly.The album succeeds in creating its own unique atmosphere that is nature and human friendly. Recommended !