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Arborea is an Indie folk/Psych folk duo from Maine. Formed in the summer of 2005 by husband and wife team Buck and Shanti Curran, their music follows in the progressive folk tradition of the American Iconic guitarists/composers John Fahey, and Robbie Basho, British Folk group Pentangle, as well as contemporaries Marissa Nadler, Espers, Devendra Banhart, and Iron and Wine. Buck plays guitar, slide guitars, bowed strings, flutes, banjo, and vocals. Shanti provides lead vocals, banjo, ukulele, bowed strings, harmonium, and percussion. Their songs are, as described by George Parsons of Dream Magazine,” 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”. In October of 2006 the duo released their first cd ‘Wayfaring Summer to glowing reviews and airplay throughout the U.S., the U.K., and Europe. In 2007 Arborea performed at the Green Man Festival in the U.K (with a lineup that included Robert Plant, and Joanna Newsom), the Tanned Tin Festival in Spain, and the Time of Rivers Festival in Portland, Maine. Arborea also performed a live set on the popular Jersey based free form station WFMU with host Irene Trudel, and in November taped a session for Spinning on Air on WNYC with host David Garland to air in January of 2008. Equal parts psychedelia and backwater folk, inspired by Smithsonian field recordings, Arborea succeeds in creating a new folk form of breathtaking originality.
Discography
'Wayfaring Summer' released on Summer Street Records October 2006
Digital version of Wayfaring Summer released in October 2007
Upcoming releases include the self-titled album 'Arborea' to be released on Swedish Record Label Kning Disk (limted edition) as well as Summer Street Records.
Live set on WFMU/Irene Trudel's show 28 May 2007 archived on www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/23308
Various songs from Wayfaring Summer played and archived on WFMU throughout 2007
Live set on Spinning on Air/WNYC January 2008
Airplay on KPFA Berkeley, Ca
KDVS Davis, CA 'Cool as Folk
WFMU Jersey City,NJ
WNYC NYC,NY 'Spinning On Air'
FM 99.3 Syndey, Australia 'Sideways Through Sound'
WMBR 88.1FM Boston,MA 'Pipeline'
WNEC 91.7 Henniker,NH "Seldom Heard Radio"
Main Public Broadcasting Network 'In Tune By Ten - Sunday' with Sara Willis
REVIEWS
DIRTY LINEN MAGAZINE/Feature article - New Psych Folk Part 2/with Iron and Wine/Rio en Medio
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.
http://www.dirtylinen.com/linen/131/131psych.htm
Terrascope Review
ARBOREA – WAYFARING SUMMER
(CD from Summer Street Records )
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)
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.
Popjunkie's Album of the Year - Arborea 'Wayfaring Summer'
It's a bold claim, but one I'm willing to stick my neck out on. I won't hear a better album than this in 2006. The best new record I've heard in years, Arborea's 'Wayfaring Summer' is a bona fide masterpiece. 10 tracks of absolute genius, containing the tender beauty of Nick Drake's 'Five Leaves Left', the intimate scratchy picks and slides of the Reverend Gary Davis, the other worldy qualities of British acid folk, and a breathtaking originality completely Arborea's own. Buck and Shanti Curran have created a wonderful album that needs to be heard by anyone with ears.
'Rivers and Rapids' is equal parts psychedelia, Smithsonian field recording and backwater folk. Shanti's voices trips in and out over a strange bowed noise that unnerves and settles simultaneously. 'Alligator' is the sound of the sexiest country/folk you've ever heard. Shanti purrs, siren like, leading you down by the water for white magic and fire-light mischief. If you will be completely in love with Shanti by the close of the song, and Buck's sensual instrumentation only furthers the sass.
Each song feels incredibly intimate and contains cathedral volumes of space. The feel of each track is superbly varied and paced, yet somehow manage to feel like they've been unearthed in the vaults of an ancient Corinthian church.
'Shagg Pond Revival' is subtly off-kilter, with Shanti becoming the chanteuse once more. However, there is more to Arborea than seduction. 'Dance, Sing, Fight' sees both singing (something that Buck should do more frequently by the sounds of this) in perfect union. The dying notes of the chorus from Shanti's lips are so sweet that it's impossible to resist. The stop/start lyrics glide through yet more fabulous music, and should their be a single, this would be worth considering. Failing that, the stand out track from the LP is the heartbreaking Beirut which sinks deep into your memory on first listen. The lyric "I hear the sound" rings true as the song goes straight to your heart and doesn't let go. A truly wonderful piece of music.
For fans of folk and/or country, this album is absolutely essential. It holds British folk as close to its heart as 1920's country and blues. Many have tried to fuse them before, and failed, but Arborea have found the perfect marriage and developed an incredible, ethereal beauty that leaves them light years ahead of the pack. To say that only folkies would like the album is to do it a disservice. There is enough to appeal to anyone. Listen to 'Warfaring Summer' over and over and over again, and new motifs and melodies reveal to the listener in each sitting. This is an LP that this writer really can't get enough of. Incredible, breathtaking and perfect. -Mof Gimmers
PSYCHEDELIC HOMESTEAD, BELGIUM
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 !
