In 2010 Buck and Shanti of Arborea were hard at working Kickstarting their new album. From their 2006 debut, the duo had been writing, recording, touring as much as possible throughout the US, UK, and Europe. They were raising funds to release their 4th album titled Red Planet which they hoped to also release on vinyl as well as tour the album.
Red Planet was released ten years ago today and received critical praise making Rolling Stone ‘Best Under-the-Radar Albums of 2011’, ‘Editors Top Pick’ Guitar Player Magazine December 2011, ‘Top Vinyl Pick’ September 2011 Mojo Magazine, Uncut Magazine ‘Top 100 Albums of 2011’, and Portland Phoenix ‘Top Ten Albums of 2011’.
It was a significant milestone on many different levels.
…we were at the height of our creativity and inspiration and the music was flowing in such an incredible, magical, and natural way.
Buck Curran (Arborea)
Below, in celebration of the album’s Tenth Anniversary, you can read their very personal recollections of that album along with personal insights into its making.
Arborea Red Planet 10th Anniversary
Buck: Song for Obol is an achingly beautiful and mysterious song…the kind of song that seems to come from the same mystical place as a song like Stairway to Heaven. What inspired you to write it and can you explain some of the imagery behind the lyrics?
Shanti: There is a warm, intimate closeness to the songs and at the same time a chilling, wide distance. Both sentiments seem to merge, then separate, as if feelings could dance together.
‘In the wild, a hand of man lines the trees to face the west.’
Song for Obol is a magnified yet distant reflection on our society and the conditions of our environment.
The hand of man refers to the will of men to dominate nature for profit, yet also a meditation of my time spent in Ireland. One day I was walking through a pine tree farm, it was the first time I had ever been in an intentionally planted forest, and the straight lines and dark tunnels created by the trees were bizarrely chilling.
‘Prophet speaks through stone and bone, freed from courts of shifting tone.’
Specifically, I was referring to scholar-philosopher-prophet Hugh Sacker, a friend of ours who lived with his family on a farm in the mountains outside of Dublin. As a young man he was an officer in the British Army stationed in Palestine in the period just after World War 2 and later became the professor of Medieval German at Trinity College in Dublin before dropping out of academic life to raise his family in the Wicklow Mountains. Hugh had a unique and insightful perception of time and our place in history. The song was inspired by knowing and loving him, yet also a general acknowledgment there are those among us who are not swayed by shifting values and have a profound understanding of history and ergo, the future.
The song continues to dance between now and the distant future.
Buck: Another one of my favorite songs on Red Planet that you wrote (also one of my favorite songs to play live) is Arms and Horses. That song has such beauty and yet holds so much tension combined with feelings of release and weightlessness. Do you remember the moment when you discovered that melodic progression on the banjo? Did the words come to you at the same time as the music or did they manifest separately?
Shanti: Arms and Horses is similar in temperament, with that back and forth feeling of a waltz. I seem to recall that it was all created in a rush, during a time of raw and ugly grief. I had the bittersweet experience of the loss of my father, tempered by the gentle beauty and love of my children, who in their most natural and wise way pulled me from my mourning and out into the frigid winter night for a walk. The tension and release felt in this song comes from the contrast of experience. Returning from that walk, and into our warm home was like unfolding into the song itself.
Shanti: A coming of age
The recording of Red Planet, and the following tour was a time of ease of being, despite the demanding work, the long hours of traveling, and the conflict of home versus tour, there was a distinct lack of the painful self-awareness of one’s limitations.
It was the start of a coming of age, in that rare moment when the best part of innocence was within us. The willingness to experiment with creative sincerity, combined with enough skill and proficiency in self-expression existed amid a fertile cultural landscape, supplying the resulting album Red Planet.
It is what remains of an unquantifiable quality of being.
The adventures we had, and the friendships we made are a gift that I will always treasure. It is a natural human tendency to normalize any experience, and the resulting regret at feeling as if I never fully appreciated such quality of living informs me in everything I do to this day, with as much humility and reverence as I am capable of feeling.
The years since Red Planet’s release have seen many changes, both personal and societal.
Monumental upheavals and restructuring, both far and near, and with that, all the fear, pain, excitement, and growth that comes with transformations have supplied a new perspective, and fresh ears to hear Red Planet. For all its rough edges, (and there are many!) what remains distinct is the honesty and timelessness of the music. I say this, not as co-creator to a thing I claim ownership to, rather, a witness to some magic that was not OF me but moved through me.
Buck: Spain was written during our recording periods which typically took place during long cold winters in Maine. After the release of our first album Wayfaring Summer (2006) we started working with a booking agent in Spain (Born! Booking) who had contacted us to play the Tanned Tin Festival. We ended up touring a lot in Spain between 2007 and 2013. The winter of 2009/2010 was particularly cold and found me dreaming of being back in the warm surroundings of Spain, playing music with Shanti. To augment the sense of longing that I felt the song needed to convey, we asked Helena Espvall to play cello on the recording (she also played cello on Arms and Horses). Helena had previously played cello on our song Black Mountain Road from our self-titled album from 2008. And so, during the Summer of 2010 she traveled from Philly with her boyfriend Derek Moench to our place in Maine and we tracked her cello at Shanti’s family kamp and at our house in Lewiston. During their visit, we went to the ocean one day and Derek ended up taking a photograph on the beach (using a red filter we had) that would later become the artwork for the cover of Red Planet. Derek also made the video for Phantasmagoria in Two by combining video footage he had taken while at the kamp and of a graveyard in Philadelphia.
Buck: The lyrics for A Little Time came to me during a period in which I was ruminating on writing a song as a dedication to my children and family life. I really just wanted to honor all the beautiful people that I was thankful for in my life. One thing that never ceases to amaze me, is how fast time flies and nothing marks the passing of time better than being witness to how fast kids grow. And so, during winter one day, I was looking out the window and watching all these snowflakes hitting the glass and their unique shapes were so beautiful and vivid right before they dissolved. That moment was so very surreal and was the catalyst for writing lyrics that reflect how fleeting and fragile every moment in life is. The song starts off with that imagery: snowflake on my window, oh how you shine, oh you crazy diamond, oh so little time. Shanti was the one who kicked it off musically one afternoon while sitting around playing tenor ukulele when suddenly I heard her play something that would become the main musical motif. She was singing fragments of a wordless melody too, so I poked my head around the corner and said…hey that’s great, keep playing that…and as she played, I started hearing an accompanying vocal melody and the lyrical imagery began streaming in my mind. Well at that point the song just came together really fast, and we recorded it straight away. We ended up using the first or second take, which often happened when we started our recording sessions. Those first or second takes always ended up having an immediacy to them…a feeling of magic.
Buck: Black Is The Colour and Phantasmagoria In Two: One of my favorite albums by a duo was Martin and Jessica Radcliffe True, Dare, or Promise. Jessica’s hauntingly beautiful song Wholly in My Keeping and Martin’s haunting slide guitar has always been one of the main musical inspirations. On the CD version of that album there is a recording featuring Jessica’s lyrical arrangement of Black is The Colour. When Shanti and I started playing together, I just felt that it would make a perfect song for Arborea to cover. I first discovered Tim Buckley’s song Phantasmagoria in Two when I was living in Virginia in the 90s when Dream Letter (Live in London 1968) was first released. For me Phantasmagoria embodies the idea of a psychedelic folk song…and it is one of my very favorite songs. When Shanti and I began to seriously play music together, there was just no doubt in my mind that Arborea would cover it. I also want to mention that Phantasmagoria was the only song not recorded in Maine. It was recorded by our friend Travis Gallagher at his home, while we were on tour in Austin during SXSW in 2010.
Buck: It’s hard to wrap my head around the reality that Arborea’s 4th album Red Planet turns 10 years old on April 26 this year. The album was originally released on Vinyl and CD on Chris Scofield’s label Strange Attractors Audio House (Portland, Oregon). I feel it is very much Arborea’s most pivotal album and one the best bodies of artistic work that Shanti and I did together, primarily because it was written and recorded during a time when we were not under a lot of pressure, yet we were at the height of our creativity and inspiration and the music was flowing in such an incredible, magical, and natural way. We were also in our prime physically because we had been working extremely hard over a 6-year period, which saw us produce three previous albums and touring (part-time) which had taken us around the world playing shows and festivals. Soon after releasing the album, we began touring fulltime in the US, UK, and Europe…filled with dreams and purpose, it felt like the music was carrying us towards an endless horizon. Though, looking back, I think when you start relying on your art to survive it takes things to a different level and that can be hard, especially when you have a home and children to take care of. However, there are so many examples of wonderful things that were happening during that period between 2010 and 2012. During the time right before and then after the album was released, we were also truly fortunate to have a lot of professional support from veteran DJs and music writers: NPR, World Cafe, Rolling Stone, WXPN Philly, KEXP Seattle, KPFA in Berkeley, etc. Shanti and I really have so many people to thank for helping us along the way, and sadly some of those important folks like Hugh Sacker or veteran Philly DJ Gene Shay, are no longer with us. We also need to give huge thanks to Joshua Pfeffer who helped with the layout and to Harris Newman who did brilliant work mastering the album. And of course we need to give deep thanks to you Alex, for all the wonderful features you gave Red Planet on Folk Radio UK. All your work helped introduce us to a lot of folks, and in turn helped with touring in the US, UK, and Europe. And most importantly we need to thank everyone who bought the album, our booking agents and promoters, and everyone who came out to our shows…it was a very special time to be alive and playing music.
Buck is currently looking for support on a new project which has an interesting story behind it concerning a guitar he commissioned.
In his own words…
Hello Friends and Supporters of my music and Obsolete Recordings! As I look to the future I am hoping to do quite a lot. Above all yes, I want to bring you the very best music possible. And so with this post I am offering new subscription levels as I am hoping to embark on my next recording projects which are going to include realizing a dream of mine. In 2009 I commissioned a guitar to be made by a guitar maker who has been a primary inspiration for me throughout my life as a musician and guitar maker. I even hand selected the Red Spruce during a trip to a farm in Maine one year. I had thought about this guitar and designed the specs over a period of 10 years. Through a period of hard work as a full time musician on the road and some other life transitions I was not able to pay the balance and the guitar was sold to another person as the maker was no longer able to wait for me. Through the last 5 years I have wondered about the guitar and often looked for signs of its existence on the internet. Well after years of thinking on this instrument and wondering where in the world it was….I have finally found it in Japan at a respectable guitar shop. So the plan is to quickly raise the funds to buy this guitar and once I have it to make an initial series of inspired albums. The first of these albums will be a studio album celebrating the instrument…featuring its voice and all its tonal color. The second album will be using the guitar to accompany my voice…so very much a song oriented album. The third album, and cornerstone of this project, will be to use the guitar as part of field-recording project which I have been ruminating on and making plans for, over the past 15 years. As I have traveled around Italy, where I live now, I have found many wonderful historic places that have the most beautiful natural reverb. Some of these places are in churches, some are in historic ancient Roman sites. The acoustic guitar sounds beyond amazing in these spaces. So the idea is to record music using the guitar in these unique spaces and make an album of these field recordings. So I hope you join me in this meaningful endeavor and can help me achieve the highest level of creativity through such an inspiration as this. As a primary gift for your support with this project I am offering All of my digital back catalog here on Obsolete Recordings Bandcamp, as well as All of my future digital recordings in the 40 dollar Tier Level. And so the next Tier up includes everything in the previous Tier plus a Vinyl copy of my new album ‘No Love Is Sorrow’ . For those subscribe at the 100 to 500 dollar Level you will receive all past and future digital albums plus any physical albums I have (Vinyl and CD) and one large custom watercolor painting (valued at 500 dollars). For those at the 500 Level you will get everything mentioned plus I will organize a concert at your home or any place you prefer. I am also offering 20 percent ownership of the publishing for the compositions of these three albums to four individuals in the 2,000 Tier Level (this is a one time payment..not monthly or yearly). Thank You Dearly for listening and I hope you’ll join me on this musical adventure.
Sincerely, Buck Curran
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