A La Sombra De Un Árbol : A Mix Curated by Buck Curran
I love acoustic guitar more than almost anything, especially gorgeous, intricate, finger-style work. So when Buck Curran introduced himself, I was immediately enamored with his playing – thoughtful and deliberate, intensely intimate, moody and sensual.
In 2020 he put out No Love is Sorrow, his third solo release after many years as half of psych-folk duo Arborea. It’s a lovely, meditative album with an organic feel, with instrumentals interwoven with deeply personal songs about his loved ones and past lives. Morning Haikus, Afternoon Ragas, the preceding album, has become something of a go-to for me in recent months, Buck’s complex yet soothing picking hitting just the right way. Immortal Light, Buck’s solo debut, is a gorgeous dichotomy of earth and space. And if you haven’t checked out the live EP he released on the first of the year, please do.
Considering the various compilations and tribute records to acoustic guitar giants that Buck has masterminded (We Are All One, In the Sun: a tribute to Robbie Basho; and Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose), I asked Buck to create a guest mix figuring he’d have impeccable taste. I was thrilled to see the tracklist contains lots of favorites and friends of Petal Motel, as well as many new sounds.
A La Sombra De Un Árbol: In the shade of a tree…in the summer where I long to be, looking over at some rusted relic of American ingenuity laying silent in tall grass, wondering about its story with this mixtape rolling in the background. After some hours, the sun will drop below the horizon and I’ll go meet with friends to celebrate the arrival of the new age with new songs.
Tracklist:
- Nicolò Melocchi – Raag Bhimpalasi
- Espers – Caroline
- Adele H – Back to the Trees
- Cinder Well – No Summer
- Gwenifer Raymond – Incantation
- Allysen Callery – Our Lady Of The Highway
- Matt Lajoie – Sunrise on Magic Meadow
- Victor Herrero – Añil
- Prana Crafter – Rebirth In The Mosslands
- Steffen Basho Junghans – Raga Peru
- Adaya – War Blinded
- Buck Curran – Marie
- Josh Kimbrough – Once in Royal David’s City
- The Modern Folk – These Times
- Paolo Novellino – Altaj
- Rob Noyes – Apparent Brightness
- Elkhorn – To See Darkness
- Burnt Paw – Diamond Fire
- University Challenged – On The Banks Of The River Swale
- Victor Herrero – Balasera
- Nicolò Melocchi – Raag Shud Saran
Thanks so much to Lara for the invitation to curate a Mixcloud mixtape for Petal Motel. This playlist begins with the beautiful and contemplative afternoon Raag ‘Bhimpalasi’ and ends with the daytime Raag ‘Shud Sarang’ (both tracks recorded by my dear friend Nicolò Melocchi. Nico is in India now with his guru Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia). Between these two Raags stream a vast landscape of evocative compositions by some of my favorite musicians…along with one track that I created in dedication to my dear grandmother Marie who was born in 1929 in Paris, Tennessee, and passed away February 16th, 2020. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was growing up. Whenever I think of her, she’s very much felt like home, no matter where in the world I’ve found myself. And so I carry her heart with me wherever I go, often remembering her laughter and the sound of her sweet voice (spoken with a Tennessee accent that never faded despite many years of living up north in Michigan in the Metro Detroit area). There is a series of repeating hammer-on pull-offs in ‘Marie’ that represents a vision of doves carrying her spirit away as she passed from this life. This vision appeared to me as this instrumental suddenly manifested itself and was quickly recorded one evening at the end of February. The vision came from a story my father told me not long after she had passed, where there had been doves perched outside my grandmother’s window. As she passed, they suddenly flew away. ~Buck Curran January 9th, 2021
