Taken from his forthcoming new album, ‘One Evening and Other Folk Songs‘ (May 24th on Obsolete Recordings – pre-order), and in follow-up to ‘Sadness‘ (influenced by the moods of John Coltrane’s lamentation ‘Alabama’ and Ornette Coleman’s ‘Sadness’), Buck Curran has shared his new single ‘Black is the Colour‘.
This is a very different arrangement of this traditional Scottish-American folk song and features Adele H singing lead; her mesmerising vocals seem very at home within this improvised and experimental setting, as do the rest of the band – Dave Barbarossa (Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant) on drums, Roberto Frassini Moneta on Upright Bass and Jodi Pedrali on keyboards, who has been playing with Buck since 2017.
Buck shared: “The track started with the bass line I wrote in which I was sort of channeling Danny Thompson’s work with Pentangle. The track is one of the foundations of the record and was recorded, mostly improvised, in one take.”
The track is quite unlike anything Curran has released before, with all players delivering a top performance that hooks you in from the start. While they may be channelling early Pentangle, the results contain strong hints of Curran’s improvisational DNA that is more often found in contemporary jazz territory. As he demonstrates again here, he’s not afraid to take risks or be experimental.
Buck Curran is playing in Bristol on May 15th (at Matter Wholefoods – directly across from GreenBank in Belle Vue Road, Bristol. Doors at 8pm, music usually starts at 8:30pm). He also has shows with Nick Jonah Davis in Wirksworth at Feather Star Pub on May 16th, Imaginary Wines in Todmorden on May 17th, Bishop’s House in Sheffield on May 18th, and Cafe Oto London on May 19th.
Buck Curran’s Notes on One Evening and Other Folk Songs
The foundation of this recording is the musical chemistry between Jodi Pedrali and myself. Jodi and I had been playing music together since 2017, and the band we assembled for this session centered around the idea of having London native Dave Barbarossa play drums with us. Dave Barbarossa (Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant) was my favorite drummer during my formative years playing guitar in high school. Dave and I first met over a pint in London (in Soho) in April of 2022. We talked about fatherhood and life, but mostly about music. It was wonderful to discover that he shared my love for the music of Pentangle. Soon after that meeting we started discussing the idea of recording a Live session in the manner of some of the performances of Pentangle that we had watched on my cell phone in the pub. And so once Dave agreed to fly to Bergamo to record with me and Jodi – to round out the session we recruited the brilliant Italian singer Adele Pappalardo and bass player Robert Frassini Moneta.
The essence of what we documented on this record is the energy of a quickly assembled group who had never played together before, and due to time restrictions, we arranged parts and rehearsed for only a few hours the day before entering the studio. All the songs performed by the band were recorded in the studio by Marco Fasolo as a ‘Live’ session (4, 5, and 6 July 2022) – the tracks we used were from first or second take performances (Jodi and I really wanted to capture the energy of playing music together Live in the same space). I can hear things got a little loose in places, but overall we were really happy with how we all played together and grateful for recording the energy of that moment during those fleeting summer days in 2022.
~ Buck Curran, February 7th, 2024
Pre-Order One Evening and Other Folk Songs: https://obsoleterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/one-evening-and-other-folk-songs
Black is the Colour is out today on all streaming platforms.