The title of this record may make you think of the movie about a dying planet but folk duo Arborea are more preoccupied with our emotional wellbeing than wider ecological concerns.
They are husband and wife Buck and Shanti Curran from Portland, Maine and Red Planet is their fourth album.
Aside from Buck's excellent guitar work the record features the two of them playing a wide range of acoustic instruments including banjo, harmonium, hammered dulcimer, ukulele, violin, flute, kalimba (an African thumb piano) and a frame drum.
Helena Espvall also plays cello on two of the tracks : Spain + Arms And Horses. Her contribution will inevitably encourage comparisons to Espers, the Philadelphia-based neo-folk band she plays with. This would not be entirely misplaced since there is a strong connection between these two artists. Both obviously derive key inspiration from traditional folk music but neither is solely driven by the need to produce faithful renditions of old-time songs.
There are two short instrumental tracks on Red Planet but it is the purity of Shanti's vocals that establishes the intimate mood of the album.
Her singing is not always comforting in the way such serene voices usually are. The description of tracks as being like "spectral hymns" conveys well their calm yet otherworldly, meditative qualities.
After a crisp one minute acoustic guitar intro (The Fossil Sea) the album proper opens with a bold rendition of the much covered Black Is The Colour.
Over the course of seven minutes, the backing on this song is confined to a drone and minimal acoustic guitar and the slow, unhurried vocal delivery draws out the intensity and pathos of lines like: "The purest eyes and the strongest hands - I love the ground on which he stands".
This may not be as out there as the vocal gymnastics of Patty Water's version but it is still a radical interpretation which illustrates that Arborea are not worried about upsetting purists when it comes to adapting traditional material.
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Equally striking is their majestic cover of Tim Buckley's Phantasmagoria In Two. Again simplicity is the keynote. Save for a short burst of electric guitar near the end, a plucked banjo is the sole backing. Shanti's voice again lingers sensuously to emphasise the depth of passion behind lines like "If you tell me of all the pain you've had, I'll never smile again".
The lost, lonely love at the heart of this track is also a feature of another traditional song, Careless Love - the sad tale of a woman betrayed, with shades of Thomas Hardy's poem 'A Ruined Maid.
Of the duo's own songs, the album's longest track , Wolves, is the standout. This is a strange eerie piece with a superbly layered instrumental arrangement that establishes a very wintry mood.
Wolves opens wistfully with the line ""long before the time of my time" and here, as with all the songs, past events seem imbued with a resigned passivity rather than any anger, nostalgia or regret.
My impression is that the duo's writing and choice of covers is inspired by the complex relationship between the fixed, unchangeable nature of the past and the present time.
Their quiet, unhurried approach makes this an album that demands to be listened to with the same degree of care and attention with which it was made.
The only track I would skip is a short hidden track (Torchbearer) that seems like an mistaken afterthought.
Otherwise, this is a truly magical record deserving of 45 minutes of anybody's time.
Arborea's blog
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