In 2016, American Singer-songwriter-guitarist, record producer, painter and guitar maker Buck Curran released Immortal Light, his first solo album reissued on vinyl earlier this year on Ramble Records. Thomas Blake said in his review of that album (also a Featured Album of the Month at the time) that it was probably a surprise to many that this was his solo debut, considering how long Curran has been a leading light in the psych-folk scene. Curran was, of course, one-half of Arborea (alongside Shanti Deschaine). By the time of Immortal Light, he had “…carved out a path somewhere between the witchy groves of the wyrd folk movement and the more studiedly avant-garde realms of improvisation and composition, and in doing so has created five critically acclaimed and highly accomplished records.”
River Unto Sea was one of the most quietly impressive tracks on the album, and it comes as no surprise that, a few years on, it is a track that Curran still frequently returns to when performing live. To quote from the review, River Unto Sea is “a meditative, serpentine instrumental that swells imperceptibly; it is a prime example of a musician in tune with his surroundings.” Ireland and Maine are the inspirations behind the acoustic instrumental.
The live recording of the track below was captured by David James Logan, who also plays bass. David has worked on a number of projects with Buck – he recorded the video for Winter Solstice 1 (for Steffen), which was featured on Solstice: A Tribute to Steffen Basho-Junghans, an album curated by Buck in memory of the late Steffen Basho-Junghans, who passed away on 1st December 2022 (read Harry Wheeler’s tribute here). He also made the title track video for Impermanence (also a Featured Album of the Month) by Adele H, the alias of Adele Pappalardo, an experimental pop singer and musician from the city of Bergamo in northern Italy and also Buck’s wife and frequent musical collaborator and who also assisted in some of the camera work here.
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