it's only natural!

We play shows in France, England, Spain, Portugal and the U.S.

eventually. soon.

Press Reviews

DIRTY LINEN MAGAZINE/Feature article - New Psych Folk Part 2/with Iron and Wine/Rio en Medio
Lahri Bond
Combining the common emotional thread running thro...
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.html

DREAM MAGAZINE ISSUE No. 8 REVIEW, INTERVIEW, and CD
DREAM MAGAZINE
Introduction to interview by Editor George Parsons...
Introduction to interview by Editor George Parsons (excerpt)

The band Arborea is made up of married couple Buck and Shanti Curran of Lewiston, Maine, so far they've only made one album, but after hearing it I knew they'd be of interest to many of the devoted readers of this humble publication.
Conjuring truly transportational magic out of the simplest ingredients. Their beautiful and absolutely essential debut album Wayfaring Summer came out in late 2006 on Summer Street Records, it's easily one of the best debut albums I've heard in many moons. It's a truly beguiling self-produced collection of ten songs delivered in just over twenty seven and half minutes; so they're not wasting anyone's time. Combining ancient folk musical influences from the Appalachians, to Asia; the UK, to the American South with lots of stops along the way. Instantly accessible, but elusively dreamy. For all fans of timeless psychedelic folk rock this a real dream come true.

Review

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

THE WIRE magazine (UK)
The Wire magazine (UK)
An aura of stillness and isolation hangs, foglike,...
An aura of stillness and isolation hangs, foglike, over the second album from husband and wife duo Buck & Shanti Curran. Like many of their freefolk peers, the range of music drawn upon here–
Appalachian banjo, melancholy English ballads, psychedelia and Takoma-style guitar instrumentals – puts paid to any pretence of being genuine hermits. But in contrast to the summer nostalgia of
their 2006 debut, Wayfaring Summer, Arborea evokes the Currans’ Maine home as a place of murky pine forests, snowbound winters and unquiet ghosts. According to the CD sleeve, most of the music is here a first take improvisation. Presumably this refers to the sung melody or guitar lines that form the core of each song, for much of the record’s charm comes from the blending of Shanti Curran’s vocals, which bring a more desolate edge to Vashti Bunyan’s breathy purity, with sparse but carefully conceived accompaniment. On opener “Forwarnedâ€쳌, the menace hinted at by her lilting melody is made apparent
by a counterpoint of piercing, discordant cries like the wailing of supernatural mourners, trickling percussion and guitar plucked with lingering vibrato. “Red Birdâ€쳌, meanwhile, adds a moan of cello from Espers’ Helena Espvall to a crisp lament. Psychedelic touches are used sparingly but effectively: “ides of Marchâ€쳌 pairs slide guitar with backwards drones redolent of dragging tides, whereas “Black Mountain Roadâ€쳌 starts out like a hillbilly nightmare of reversed banjo
and glossolalia before an about turn revels its flipside to be an ethereal
ballad, a rare sunny moment made more fleeting by the darkness that surrounds
it. – Abi Bliss


BOSTON GLOBE - Arborea: A Magical Mystery Tour
Boston Globe, June 10, 2008
A magical mystery tour

June 10, 2008

Arborea...
A magical mystery tour

June 10, 2008

Arborea

Arborea (Fire Museum)

ESSENTIAL "Echo of Hooves"

The second album from this northern Maine acid-folk duo floats like a daydream in and out of song and form. Ideas are tacked together with loose improvisations, ringing notes, and lush strums echoing as they drift through spare atmospheres. Words are sung when the mood allows, riffs and phrases played until they no longer amuse. But unlike most albums that double as aural wallpaper, we're sucked in, along for Arborea's ethereal ride through a psych-holler reshuffling of Appalachian and British folk music. On "Dark Is the Night (in the Wind)," a banjo kicks out a rhythm emulating the clop-clop of horses, while "Red Bird" tracks like the title song of a melancholy movie. Though Shanti Curran's violin and vocal hosannas are often more tone fragments than melodies, they have a synergy with Buck Curran's guitar and flute, leaping and sliding in concert with his plucked resonances and diving overtones.


TERRASCOPE UK REVIEW
TERRASCOPE
Take a handful of politically sharp lyrics, hone t...
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
Mof Gimmers (Electric Roulette)
My life has just changed forever. Why? Because I c...
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.

AQUARIUS RECORDS REVIEW
Aquarius Records
We hadn't heard too much about these fluttering fo...
We hadn't heard too much about these fluttering folk faeries, but odds are, we'll all be hearing a whole lot about these guys (and gals) in the near future. The sound they make is a gorgeous sun dappled blend of soft focus Appalachia, folky forest drift, shimmering indie shuffle, all wrapped in a warm gauzy production like a lazy summer afternoon spent on a porch swing, just sitting, and staring out at everything and nothing.
Minor key melodies unfurl via stately steel string guitar, a lilting mix: a little blues, a little Appalachia, a little moody ambience, flecks of twang here and there, all very spare and languorous. The female vocals are gently affected, the result a perfect mix of modern nu-folk, some Chan Marshall, some Joannna Newsom, and a healthy dose of classic old school British folk, Incredible String Band, Pentangle... the vocals very dramatic and swoonsome, perfectly complimenting the dark twangy swirl beneath. At some points the vocals become much more intense and pronounced, and we're definitely reminded of Jolie Holland, the vibe becoming decidedly country at times, but even then, the music continues to sway and shimmer, drifting and floating, the leaves in the trees above rustling, the leaves below crunching underfoot. So lovely.
Obvious comparisons would be Devendra, Newsom, Feathers, Vetiver, Brightblack, Espers, and odds are anyone into that stuff will be quite smitten by Arborea, but even folks who aren't always sold on this new wave of folk revivalists, might find Arborea's old fashioned sounds just familiar enough to wrap up in like an favorite old blanket...


RAVEN SINGS THE BLUES; Arborea S/T Review
Raven Sings the Blues
A beautiful and stirring second album from the Mai...
A beautiful and stirring second album from the Maine duo of Buck and Shanti Curran, known better as Arborea. Lilting and desolate folk that's as beautiful as it is lonesome; and as their name might suggest tinged with dark earthen overtones. The eponymous album feels almost disconnected from urbanity, the calm dry heat of songs like "Ides of March" choke your throat with the dust of stretched gravel roads, the endless repetition of wheat. Elsewhere the pair turns decisively off the path, with rolling clouds replaced by a canopy of trees and twigs underfoot. The sweet loneliness of isolation mixed with the creak of oaken chairs on floorboards and the smell of wet dirt. The pair aren't totally isolated, however, as they enlist the help of fellow traveler Helena Espvall of Espers whose mournful cello adds nicely to the mix. The album is quite an accomplishment and it's often hard to believe that this is only the group's second offering but as with their first album (which is also well worth tracking down) it's the natural ease and unpolished edge that makes it most alluring.

Alternative Psychedelic Folk, Vashti Bunyan, Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Brightblack Morning Light, Vetiver, Marissa Nadler, Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Iron and Wine, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Espers, Six Organs of Admittance, Castanets, Mariee Sioux, more...

a patch of sunlight in the dark forest...

Instrumentation
Shanti Curran plays:
Vocals
Banjo
Ukulele
Banjo-dulcimer
guitar
percussion
harmonium
reversed music box

Buck Curran plays:
Electric Guitar
Acoustic Guitar
Slide Guitar
Flutes
Banjo
Vocals
Bowed Strings

Discography
'Wayfaring Summer' released on Summer Street Records October 2006

TEA-1 Compilation Cd, 2007,Terrascope Online (UK)

Digital version of Wayfaring Summer released in October 2007. Available through Apple iTunes, Rhapsody.

April 2008 self-titled album 'Arborea' released on Fire Museum Records/national distribution through Forced Exposure.

Dream Magazine Issue No. 8/2008 Interview and companion compilation cd.

2008 re-release of Wayfaring Summer on Borne/Acuarela Recordings in Spain, which will receive wide distribution in Europe and Asia.

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
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/episodes/2008/01/20

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


Links
http://www.myspace.com/arborea2