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Arbouretum, Let it All In: Water and Wind

Arbouretum Let it All In

In some ways, Arbouretum‘s seventh album, Let it All In, tells you what you need to know right there in the title. It is a summary of the emotional perspective of the songs and the general outlook of the aesthetic, which embraces the world around it with open eyes and a keen sense of absorption and reflection, taking in ideas and melodies, turning them into cohesive expression, and giving them back in the form of eight songs that are as widely varied and stylistically adventurous as anything guitarist/vocalist/principal songwriter David Heumann and the Baltimore-based outfit have ever done before.

Issued by Thrill Jockey, it’s an album that might strum out electric folk blues on the way to an unexpected and understated guitar-goes-wandering jam on “No Sanctuary Blues” and then just as easily put keyboardist Matthew Pierce (also woodwinds) in the lead on synth for the two-minute instrumental “Night Theme,” the songs finding union through a thematic around the natural world even when Heumann‘s voice isn’t there to tie the material together. And it’s worth noting that even as Heumann, Pierce, drummer Brian Carey, bassist Corey Allendar and percussionist/drummer David Bergander get underway in opener “How Deep it Goes” — the title of which is doubly noteworthy as Heumann‘s 2015 solo debut was Here in the Deep (review here) — Heumann shifts his approach to a higher register so that the gentle delivery to be found on the subsequent quietly marching “A Prism in Reverse” and later pieces like “Buffeted by Wind” is replaced right away by something less familiar, something new. This as well speaks to the ethic of Let it All In as a whole, which remains distinctly Arbouretum‘s own while pushing the limits of what that means.

Tracked in a return collaboration by Steve Wright at Wright Way Studios in Baltimore with mastering by Sarah Register, the album is invariably marked out by its title-track, which arrives as an unmatched sprawl topped 11 minutes and taps into motorik beats and a sense of thrust that nothing else here or in recent memory from Arbouretum comes close to matching, be it 2017’s Song of the Rose (review here), 2013’s Coming out of the Fog (review here) or 2011’s The Gathering. They’ve certainly jammed and incorporated psychedelic aspects before — “The Rise” on 2007’s Rites of Uncovering was a positive freakout — but even with the additional percussion of Mike Kehl and Mike Lowry (the former also appears on “No Sanctuary Blues”) as part of the proceedings, “Let it All In” brings a progressive sense of construction that holds to its purpose even as it moves into further reaches. It goes, in short, until it stops.

Arbouretum (photo by Patrick McQuade)

And it’s not so much about pushing to the outer limits of — what? expectation? — as it is finding a place on the borderline between celebration and exploration; a fuzzy lead that takes hold around seven minutes in does no less than dance over the central rhythm beneath it, winding its way with a sure-handed cosmic pull. And since “Let it All In” is the penultimate inclusion on the album that shares its name, and since by the time it comes around, Arbouretum have already found the pastoral serenity in a post-truth world on “How Deep it Goes,” set to the organ-inclusive warm spaciousness of “A Prism in Reverse” — reminding of precisely the kind of “heft” in which they’ve long specialized, as well as the essential role of Allendar‘s bass tone therein — pulled all the wires and laid back down on “No Sanctuary Blues,” cast the meditative space of “Night Theme,” rambled and reveled in the fuzz-folk of “Headwaters II” with particularly satisfying snare punctuation, and reclaimed the shimmer on “Buffeted by Wind,” really the only thing left to do is throw in a bit of honky-tonk and call it a day, right? Right? Because where else do you go after the 11-minute flowing space-prog epic other than the ’70s AOR saloon, graced with piano by Hans Chew and culminating in an apex further marked out by an arrangement of trumpet and flugelhorn by Dave Ballou? How could it possibly be otherwise.

Of course, it works. The sudden turn from riding-light-through-the-galaxy to “High Water Song” (note also the opening “How Deep it Goes” to the closing “High Water Song” thematic bookend) might not make sense on paper, but as Arbouretum have proved on a reliable basis before, it’s the songwriting itself that is the underlying foundation of everything they do. The difference between Let it All In and even Song of the Rose, which was by no means lacking in breadth, is simply that they go further in a broader range of directions. All of these elements have been in their sound all along, but it’s as though the band have sought to reshuffle the balance thereof and the material is intended to highlight the varying facets of their approach. But again, it works, because of songwriting. After 15-plus years, Arbouretum have no trouble in positioning the listener where they want them to be, and with an overarching sense of melodic detail in vocals and instrumentation alike, from “How Deep it Goes” onward, Let it All In serves as its own best advice.

There is no mistaking a standout moment like Heumann‘s voice ringing out the repeated lines of “No Sanctuary Blues” — the whole song seems to come to a halt and give him the space to do so, then recover as it makes its way into its jam — but whether it’s that highlight or the sweet procession of “A Prism in Reverse” or the sunshine-laced bounce of “Buffeted by Wind,” the album as an entirety earns its communion with the natural world, and maybe it is looking for a sanctuary, or some manner of escape, but there’s nothing cloying or desperate about it. It remains clearheaded for the 45-minute duration and lets the horns finish “High Water Song” in a clean, sharp, but still fluid finish, serving as one final reminder that Arbouretum are no less accomplished than they are underrated. You’ll either let it in or you won’t, but if you take the time to listen, a record like this only makes your life richer.

Arbouretum, Let it All In (2020)

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3 Responses to “Arbouretum, Let it All In: Water and Wind”

  1. Rick says:

    These guys always knock it out of the park.
    Looking forward to it. As I do every release
    they’ve had. Honestly, they should be getting more attention.
    Thanks for giving it to them.
    Each small candle lights a corner of the dark, as they say..

  2. Rick says:

    I realize no ones probably going to read this,
    but, in case you do..
    To me, it felt like they were dipping a toe in the waters of something new, and then taking it back out to something familiar.
    Don’t get me wrong, I dig the album.
    I think I would have preferred them diving on in
    instead.
    We’ll see what comes next.

    • JJ Koczan says:

      I read it and appreciate your thoughts, twice over. I see where you’re coming from on the dipping their toes point. I guess I was looking at the more experimental edge as an incremental step. As you say, it’s not really the kind of thing to judge in the context of one record alone. We’ll have to see what they do next. Thanks for the comments, in any case, and for reading.

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