Interview w/ Arborea

Buck and Shanti in London (Cat Stevens)

Arborea create the world's most absorbing folk paeans. Red Planet, their fourth LP, is one of my favourite albums of 2011 thus far. I recently spoke with the duo about its creation, their fascinating background and career so far and their diverse influences.

Arborea, at what point in life do we find you?
 

Buck: At this point Shanti and I have been touring steadily since December of 2006... performing shows, festivals and radio sessions in the US, Spain, Italy, France, the UK, and Ireland.  Red Planet represents Arborea's fourth album along with two compilations that we've created: Leaves of Life and We Are All One, In the Sun: A Tribute to Robbie Basho.  The Leaves of Life compilation was created to benefit the UN World Food Programme which included Fern Knight, Devendra Banhart, Micah Blue Smaldone, Alela Diane, Marissa Nadler.  We Are All One, In the Sun included Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Fern Knight, Glenn Jones, Steffen Basho Junghans, Cian Nugent, and Iraqi born oud player Rahim Alhaj. The UK based label alt.vinyl will be releasing a vinyl version of the Basho tribute sometime this year.  Musically, I feel like Shanti and I are in great shape and we are really looking forward to touring in support of Red Planet.  We've also finally found the time to start making short films to go with our music.  Our love of film and photography has always went hand in hand with our music and those elements are a huge part of what inspires the music.

Shanti: I feel like we are standing at the edge of a cliff in a vast dark and endless forest. We are hungry and breathless and ragged and heartbroken and crazy in love with being alive. We will jump and fall or we will fly. It could happen at any moment. We could all jump and fall or fly.

How would you describe your music to those uninformed readers of Mane Shakin’ Folk?

B: Arborea's music is really a huge melting pot of our life experience and all our forms of creativity.  Much of the music is inspired by the places we've been or the important moments that we've shared together: our improvisations, our poetry, photography, the landscapes of Maine...our travels in Spain, Ireland, and the UK, our family life and two children.  Our melting pot is made of all kinds of musical elements: Folk forms, Blues, Rock, Experimental...musical elements from America, Ireland, British Isles, Persia and Asia.  Above all, it's about Shanti and I coming together and creating...striving for beauty with lots of space and surreal atmosphere.

S: I try to be honest with myself and hopefully it connects with the listener- I don't make ironic music and I'm not going to pay attention to trends and I'm going to keep writing and playing forever. I guess that doesn't really describe the sound though...dreamy film scores?

Tell us the ‘Arborea story’. Why did you decide to start making music together?
 

B: I've been making music for a very long time, but when Shanti and I got together I knew she had a great voice but she was painfully shy.  It took 7 years of marriage before she finally started to feel comfortable enough to sing around me.  In 2000 we moved from Virginia to Shanti's birth place in Maine.  After moving to Maine there were two primary things that happened which acted as the catalysts leading to the formation of Arborea.  In 2004 Shanti's partents gave us a recording program for our computer, and by that winter she had made me a special recording of her signing for my Christmas present.  The second important thing...that following summer, I knew an important step Shanti's musical development, would be to find her the right instrument to bond with...something that would really inspire her too take things further.  I found the perfect instrument for her birthday that summer...an open back banjo.  That first summer making music was really all about hanging out and improvising, but by the next summer we started to write instrumentals and songs which eventually became our first album Wayfaring Summer.  Most of that album, as with many of our recordings all the way up to our latest Red Planet were written at an old family cabin that Shanti's great grandfather made during the 1930's.  That cabin resides next to a lake beneath two mountains and it's incredibly inspirational to spend time there and focus on creating without the distractions of modern life.  Our latest album Red Planet really represents those pure moments where we've truly lost our selves to creativity.

S: Buck mostly answered this, but also it seemed like the necessary next step in our relationship- a sharing of our creative selves.

How did you go about recording and writing the songs on Red Planet?
 

B: Red Planet was recorded between our home studio and at the family cabin in the Mountains here in Maine.  The Tim Buckley song 'Phantasmagoria in Two' was arranged a couple of years ago, but was actually recorded in Austin while we were there for our SXSW showcase last March.  The songs were really written during different seasons... 'Careless Love' in the Spring, 'Black Is The Colour' in Autumn...even so, I think the album does a good job of sounding very consistent.  Shanti had already written a couple of the songs several years ago... 'Song for Obol' is a good example.  She wrote that very quickly after we returned from a stay in Ireland which followed our appearance at the Green Man Festival that year.  It's a song inspired by the family we stayed with...old friends of mine that I had lived with in the late 90's.  'Arms and Horses' was written after the unexpected loss of her father, during a walk with our children.  Shanti was observing the delicate patterns of the snow and reflecting the fragility of life. 

I wrote 'Spain' while I was longing to return to those moments where Shanti and I were on tour there. Both 'Spain' and 'Arms and Horses' were recorded last summer while Helena Espvall traveled up to Maine and stayed for a week to record with us.  She travelled with Derek Moench whose photographs we used for the album.  Derek is also responsible for making the video for 'Phantasmagoria In Two' (below).  The day before we headed to the cabin, we took Helena and Derek to one of our favorite places on the Maine coast.  That's where all the imagery for the album was created.  We were all just hanging out along with our two children...having a great time and without the intention of creating something for the album.  At one point Shanti handed Derek our red filter.  Shanti had made a staff with driftwood and bark from a Birch tree and was carrying it around. The cover of the album came together from those elements.  We didn't even know that photo existed until Derek sent us a disc with all the photos.  When we were going through them, I saw that photo and just instantly fell in love with it and thought it would make the perfect album cover. 'A Little Time' started with Shanti playing that rhythmic figure on our tenor ukulele and singing a fragment of the vocal melody.  At the time I was in another room and I heard her fooling around and I ran into where she was and told her to keeping playing it.  Then I suggested a few notes to expand the melody and told her to keep playing it.  I then grabbed some paper and the words just instantly fell onto the page.  At that point the album was already finished, but we liked the song so much that we quickly recorded it and put it at the end of the record. There's also a hidden track at the end...another piece Shanti created in memory of her father.  The title track 'Red Planet' was created by me combining and mixing layers of improvisation...which included the harmonium, hammer dulcimer, electric guitar, and our friend Frederic Oberland from Paris sent us some tracks of bowed electric guitar that he improvised over the harmonium track I emailed to him.  One important thing to emphasise is that when we are recording, we're really working to create the perfect atmosphere and mood.  We are also attempting to slow time down...especially, in this digital age where information (and ourselves) end up traveling at light speed...the real goal we are hoping to achieve is almost a state of suspended beauty like you find in a painting (or in a film)!  Something you can spend a long time with... pondering all it's colours, motion, and depth.

S: We wrote the songs over the period of a few years as a reflection of our experiences and time spent with amazing people and our misadventures. We recorded the songs ourselves and with the engineering help of our friend Derek on 'Spain' and 'Arms and Horses'. We have an old cabin on a lake in the mountains in the western part of Maine. My great-grandfather built it during the Great Depression - it's just a small camp, a place for the family to go fishing and hunting and now it belongs to the whole third generation family- we share it by writing our names on a calendar when we'd like to stay there. There's a screened in porch that overlooks the lake and mountains and at night you can see all the stars of heaven and hear the loons calling out from distant lakes - their song echoing in the wilderness. I got really good at calling back to them and they would come to our lake to try and meet the strange sounding loon that I was pretending to be. I would stand on the dock with my head thrown back and making this crazy lamenting sound and I could hear them splash into the water and come swimming towards me- it was so surreal.  Helena Espvall played the Cello on Red Planet and she recorded at the cabin with us. One night we were all in the cabin and she took her cello out on the dock and sat on a stool and played to the lake, beneath the moonlight. Those moments are all a part of what inspired us during the recording of the songs.

I hear semblances of various singer-songwriters such as Marissa Nadler and Joni Mitchell in your sound, but from where do you actually draw your influences?

B: We have certain artists that we really enjoy to listen to, but the influences in our music are really based around improvisations and the exchange of ideas between ourselves.  Instrumentals might stem purely from improvisation or even the resonance and overtones of the banjo or guitars in low alternate tuning.  Songs might begin with just a fragment of a melody, which leads to one of us adding to that, and then it goes back and forth until a song or piece of music is created.  The rugged landscape of Maine and just being outside in the mountains or along the coast is a huge inspiration for our music.

As for music that has had an influence on us... I'd say that the impact others have had is more peripheral and inspirational.  The Doors are definitely an inspiration.  The sensual and visual side of their music and lyrics...dark, expansive and evocative.  Also, when I first started thinking about Shanti and I making music...the June Tabor and Martin Simpson album A Cut Above was an archetype from which I drew inspiration...the ability to creative such a dramatic soundscape through just voice and guitar.  Those songs and recordings are intensely mystical and so well done.  Tim Buckley's music has been a huge inspiration! Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Basho, Skip James, BB King, Peter Green, Chris Whitley, and Jeff Buckley.  Shanti really loved Iron and Wine's Woman King.  Gillian Welch Hell Among the Yearlings is another album that we both love.

S: Mostly just by getting out and taking walks, listening to the world around us. I've actually listened to more Tori Amos than Joni Mitchell, but I can hear those elements too. I think there's a collective consciousness - we're all drinking from the same well.
 

You use a whole host of instruments on the record. Which piece of musical gear do you hold most dear to your heart?

B: For me, Shanti's voice is the dearest instrument.  Her voice is the most important not only for songs that she creates, but even for my own song writing, as I tend to write many songs that are not suited for my voice, but specifically created with Shanti's voice in mind.  The next two things of great importance is the banjo and guitar.  I use the guitar as a voice...thinking in terms of creating dynamic tonal colors with the use of alternate tunings and slide.

The other thing is that Red Planet features a guitar that I designed and made.  I built it extremely light and responsive and the instrument truly has a voice of it's own.  Depending on what tuning I have it in, the notes and various overtones that arise from it inspire music...'The Fossil Sea' and 'Black Is The Colour' being great examples of the sound of this instrument inspiring the performance and music. Shanti's open back banjo and the open minor tunings are similar to my guitar in the way it resonates, so when when the two are combined they sort of create their own orchestra of sound.  We also have a harmonium made in India that is featured on songs like 'Black Is The Colour' and 'Red Planet'.  That instrument is otherworldly sounding.  All of these instruments, with their tonal complexities and the space we put in the music really helps shape and define our sound.

S: My voice is my most beloved instrument. It's a part of me and it convey my feelings, distills my emotions more effectively than any other instrument I have. It's also temperamental and demands to be cared for. It doesn't like it when I yell or cry or stay up too late or drink too much or hang out too long in smoky places and sometimes it just doesn't work at all and I don't know if I will ever have it again-which  leaves me feeling brokenhearted and desperate. I can't go out to the corner music store and buy another one if I break this one. It's that kind of relationship to your instrument that means that you will never take advantage of it and you will always be grateful for it.

What’s in store for Arborea in the remainder of 2011? Any UK tour plans? 
 

B: We are coming to the UK in June after an extensive Spanish tour.  We'll play a show in London, then off to play the Body And Soul Summer solstice festival in Ireland, followed by several shows in Scotland with Two Wings (Hanna Tuulikki and Ben Reynolds). We love travelling in the UK, so we are definitely looking forward to coming back.

S: I would like to endlessly wander, maybe you'll meet us in some quiet corner but I do know that we are playing in London and Scotland in June.

Finally, are there any particular artists/records/labels/etc that you especially love at the moment?

B: More so than music...again, Shanti and I are inspired by films and the ideas of films.  Some of the gorgeous movies made in Japan in the 60's...combining music, sound, film movement...poetry and painting in film .  Kaneto Shindo Onibaba, Hiroshi Teshigahara - Woman of the Dunes, Ingmar Bergman films.  The music we love to listen to includes Tim Buckley, Ornette Coleman, Robbie Basho, Sand Denny, The Doors, The Police, Led Zeppelin, Chris Whitley, Tori Amos, Anne Briggs, June Tabor, Martin Simpson, Nikhil Banerjee, John Coltrane, Peter Green, Cameron de la Isla, Gillian Welch.  Contemporary artists that we love to listen to...many of who are friends and artists we play shows with: Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Two Wings (Hanna Tuulikki and Ben Reynolds), Fern Knight, Teddy Thompson, Marissa Nadler, William Tyler, Allysen Callery, Plinth, Eric Carbonara and Jesse Sparhawk, Dave Olliffe, Frederic D. Oberland, Matt Bauer, Vetiver, Jeff Zentner, Jeanne Madic, Denise Dill, Glenn Jones, Jack Rose, Sean Smith, The Changing Colors, Micah Blue Smaldone, Jakob Battick, South China, The Pleasants..

S: I wouldn't say I'm in love with anything in particular, but there are lot of bits and pieces that float around in my subconscious. I like the new PJ Harvey record and I'm rediscovering some of the older Tori Amos tunes, and there's a Teddy Thompson record from a few years back that I'm enjoying. I also like the music my friends are making, Jeff Zentner, Fern Knight, Denise Dill, Marissa Nadler, I know so many wonderful people that are making amazing music. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be surrounded by this kind of creativity and beauty. Also these days we are so bombarded by the outside world (since we are all so connected.) I feel like I am most inspired when I turn it all off and just listen to the sounds of the wind and the birds singing and water trickling over rocks or even off our own breath, taking a deep sigh.... In and out. And in again. 

Red Planet is out now via Strange Attractors Audio House.