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Collection includes four studio albums and one collaboration album by American rock band Arbouretum.
Dave Heumann, a musician with something of a rustic, poetic bent who backed up musicians like Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Cass McCombs, started Arbouretum in the early 2000s. The band was comprised of Heumann’s friend Walker David Teret on guitar, ex-Lungfish member Mitchell Feldstein on drums, and Corey Allender on bass. Arbouretum’s debut, Long Live the Well-Doer, was released in 2004, and their second album, Rites of Uncovering, came out three years later. The latter was recorded in part by Paul Oldham and, according to Heumann, influenced by the works of writer Paul Bowles. Solidifying themselves with Corey Allender on bass, Daniel Franz on drums, and Steve Strohmeier on guitar, Heumann reentered the studio with Rob Girardi again in 2008 and finished Song of the Pearl in only two months. Thrill Jockey released the record in February of 2009. The band toured the United States in support and immediately reentered the studio with producer Matt Boynton, who had recorded much of 2007′s Rites of Uncovering. Arbouretum underwent a lineup change in 2010: Guitarist Steve Strohmeier was replaced by keyboardist Matthew Pierce. Following the inspiration of archetypal psychologist Carl Jung’s The Red Book (at least the images that led to his writing it), Arbouretum released the expansive, mythology-drenched effort The Gathering in 2011. Around this time, Heumann formed a friendship with Hush Arbors’ Keith Wood. The two bands planned a joint European tour, and in 2012 released split LP Aureola to showcase their likeminded sounds.-Biography by Margaret Reges,
Long Live The Well-Doer (2004)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 258 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 116 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans included
Label: Box Tree | # box 001 | Time: 00:38:38
This is the album that started the band. In late 2002, Dave Heumann enlisted the aid of recordist Rob Girardi and Drummer David Bergander for a recording project, with only the most vague outlines of songs and instrumental pieces in mind. Over the course of the next year, these ideas grew in form and substance to become the nine tracks on Long Live the Well-Doer, and a live band was formed around the various contributors.
At times stark and vivid, at others bouyant and hopeful, this moody and introspective record is best appreciated through repeated listenings. With its solid songcraft, facile musicianship, and masterful production, Long Live the Well-Doer is a powerful and emotive release that weaves an intoxicating tapestry of sound and vision.
Tracklist:
01. Sands and Sands (03:32)
02. Jonas got a Tooth (03:31)
03. Don’t Let it Show (04:00)
04. I am a Somnambulist (04:43)
05. People Flock not to the Good (03:28)
06. Wisteria (03:29)
07. Early Bird gets the Worm (02:28)
08. All that will be has Become,.. (08:15)
09. Song’s a Seed in my Garden (05:07)
EAC log CD

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Rites Of Uncovering (2007)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 330 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 133 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans included
Label: Thrill Jockey | # thrill 180 | Time: 00:47:48
It’s easier to divine a band’s musical aesthetic when their press packet opens with a quote from the death scene in novelist Paul Bowles’ masterpiece, The Sheltering Sky. Arbouretum’s Rites of Uncovering closely echoes that novel’s chief conceit — transcending comfortable beliefs for the unknowable mysteries of the universe — by stripping away traditional song structure and linear progression for more natural forms. Adhering to that blueprint, Arbouretum’s songs are visceral and elemental, a loose-feeling mix of blues, folk, tribal beats, stoner rock and jam-based influences that belies the solid songwriting and musicianship at its core.
Arbouretum is the brainchild of David Heumann, who has played with Papa M and Cass McCombs, as well as brothers Paul Oldham (in Anomoanon), and Will Oldham (with Bonnie “Prince” Billy). The latter’s influence is especially tangible in Heumann’s voice and phrasing, though he tends to avoid the first-person confessional nature of Will Oldham’s narratives. Still, the likeness can be a bit disconcerting at first. The sludgy, funereal-paced album opener, “Signposts & Instruments,” sounds like Palace run through Black Sabbath’s amplifiers, as does the nearly nine-minute “Pale Rider Blues.” But it’s the Brit folk-sounding songs “Tonight’s a Jewel” and “Mohammed’s Hex & Bounty” (based on a story by Bowles’ companion Mohammed Mrabet) that most closely resemble Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s recent records — that is if he had Richard Thompson playing lead guitar.
While the comparisons may be inevitable, it’s not fair to judge Arbouretum’s music by that lone yardstick. Heumann’s macro-lyrics are the yin to Will Oldham’s micro-lyrical yang, and there’s a much broader range of styles at play on Rites of Uncovering. There’s the stoner rock vibe that informs the 11-minute guitar workout “The Rise,”which begins with a gospel call-and-response before morphing into a jam that wouldn’t be out of place on Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys record. “Ghosts of Here & There” has a distinct early Grateful Dead feel, with Heumann and Walker David Teret trading clarion-toned guitar lines worthy of Jerry Garcia. The eight-minute-long “Sleep of Shiloam” also has some of the Dead in it, though it could also be a Built to Spill epic done in slow motion. Regardless of the style, most of these contemplative, minor-key songs include free-form bridges and/or outros that also highlight the interplay between bassist Corey Allendar (Cass McCombs), and drummers Mitchell Feldstein (Lungfish) or Dave Bergander (Love Life and the Celebration).
Maybe the best way to sum up Arbouretum’s impressive Thrill Jockey debut is to return to the Bowles quote cited by the band: “There was the certitude of an infinite sadness at the core of his consciousness, but the sadness was reassuring, because it alone was familiar. He needed no further consolation.”
Review by John Schacht,
Tracklist:
01. Signposts and Instruments (03:43)
02. Tonight’s a Jewel (03:23)
03. Pale Rider Blues (08:49)
04. Ghosts of Here and There (03:45)
05. Sleep of Shiloam (07:56)
06. Mohammed’s Hex and Bounty (03:36)
07. The Rise (11:11)
08. Two Moons (05:22)
EAC log CD
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Song Of The Pearl (2009)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 277 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 115 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans included
Label: Thrill Jockey | # THRILL 212 | Time: 00:40:09
A few months after releasing a split with Pontiak, Arbouretum returned, true to form, with Song of the Pearl. At first glance, it appears that very little has changed over the two years since Rites of Uncovering. Baltimore’s Dave Heumann still pumps out elemental, minor chord Americana in the key of Will Oldham or Bill Callahan, and filters it through loud, doomy amps to make moody jams that could be mistaken for a beefed up Gordon Lightfoot, or Neil Young & Crazy Horse rocking through Blue Cheer’s gear. It’s a weird blend of power-driven grunge and melancholy: a fever dream that sweats out weary sadcore as it primitively pounds out acid rock drudge. If anything has changed since the last full-length, Heumann’s become slightly more restrained. The songs never break the six-and-a-half-minute mark, even when they feature longwinded guitar solos. “Infinite Corridors,” the stoner rock jam of the album, is the most guilty of sprawling aimlessly, but never loses focus in its slow build of a pentatonic blues groove into an fuzzy assault. In another visceral moment, “Another Hiding Place” paints the mood for a dusty soundtrack made for driving through the desert plains, with the line, “Daylight blazes, there’s a carcass on the side of the road” before the tranquil, shimmering vibe of “Down by the Fall Line” darkens the pink sunset.
Review by Jason Lymangrover,
Tracklist:
01. False Spring (05:50)
02. Another Hiding Place (05:16)
03. Down by the Fall Line (05:18)
04. Song of the Pearl (04:16)
05. Thin Dominion (04:35)
06. Infinite Corridors (06:14)
07. The Midnight Cry (03:24)
08. Tomorrow Is a Long Time (05:11)
EAC log CD
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The Gathering (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 175 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 120 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans included
Label: Thrill Jockey | # THRILL 257 | Time: 00:43:52
Baltimore’s Arbouretum are singular on the stoner psych-rock scene. Due in large part to the vision of lyricist, frontman, and lead guitarist Dave Heumann, their sound is simultaneously sprawling, devastatingly heavy, sludgy, meandering, and mysterious. The Gathering showcases a lineup change showcasing keyboardist Matthew Pierce. Paradoxically, the band’s grimy aesthetic doesn’t suffer; they’re even heavier. On these seven songs, Heumann’s guitar and voice remain the focal points. His slow, dense riffing and atypical approach to elongated soloing are extensions of his singing voice (it’s a dead cross between Warren Zevon, John Cale, and Richard Thompson). Heumann’s writing is drenched in mytho-poetic imagery distilled from Carl Jung’s archetypal psychology (in particular, those that inspired his writing of The Red Book) and less obvious Celtic and Anglo folk traditions. While strange open-space visions of wasted, bleached-out visions of Americana have always haunted his work, the lyrics here transcended those concerns. They are woven into slippery melodies that are juxtaposed against the acid bath of harsh distortion in ever-riffing guitars bogged-out thudding kick drums, open, droning, minimally constructed basslines, and subtle, chameleon-ike keyboard textures. The opening track, “The White Bird,” draws its labyrinthine message directly from Jung: “There’s somewhere that I have been meaning to revisit/In and among all, even as its true nature is hid/Here, in the gloaming and black night/Here, in the dawn and the golding bright…” The listener is invited inside a journey that has hallmarks in iconic symbolism, disaster, war, transendence, and, finally, redemption. In “Destroying to Save,” a string section washes the backdrop of Heumann’s sung lines and distorted solo fills that stagger — albeit majestically — against the crashing of cymbals and blasted reverb as he sings of “the ashen rider on a shadow mare.” The reading of Jimmy Webb’s “The Highwayman” could easily be mistaken for one of Heumann’s own songs, so well does it fit inside this album’s nightmarish visions. The closer, the monolithic, “Song of the Nile,” is ten-plus minutes of crushing weight, and blown-out, two-note bass drones. It gives way to a hypnotic riff and a stratospheric guitar solo that concludes with the band achieving an almighty throb via an utterly unholy white-out sonic architecture. The Gathering is Arbouretum’s “bridge too far”; there is no return because this set is a destination, not a development.
Review by Thom Jurek,
Tracklist:
01. The White Bird (07:09)
02. When Delivery Comes (04:22)
03. Destroying to Save (05:07)
04. The Highwayman (04:13)
05. Waxing Crescents (07:48)
06. The Empty Shell (04:33)
07. Song of the Nile (10:37)
EAC log CD
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Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - Aureola (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 242 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 102 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans included
Label: Thrill Jockey | # thrill 299 | Time: 00:38:54
Hush Arbors and Arbouretum, two extremely different outfits that both explore the lineage of progressive folk and its chance encounters with experimental and improvisatory forms, come together on the split album Aureola as distant but loving cousins or possibly two sides of the same coin. Hush Arbors’ Keith Wood and crew contribute five drifty tunes of wandering dreamer folk touched by subdued bursts of fuzzed-to-infinity guitar leads. Wood’s involvement as a supportive player in Six Organs of Admittance, Current 93, and other more free-form outfits has informed his structured folk with loosely unhinged crosscurrents. The free-raga lead guitar exclamations on “People & Places” take the song’s overall feel from On the Beach-era Neil Young outtake to one of animated free flight. Wood’s achy high-register vocals may bring Bon Iver to mind to some, but the wounded character that lies beneath the surface has more in common with Bobb Trimble’s cold falsettos or deeper still the washy lostness of Gary Higgins on his classic of outsider folk, Red Hash. Arbouretum also wander around the intersection of traditional folk and a new breed of psychedelic sounds, relying on a more tumultuous blend of overdriven guitars, booming rhythms, and U.K. folk-inspired melodies serving as the starting point for drony improvisations. The three tracks offered up here all stretch out in a languid uneasiness, with singer/guitarist Dave Heumann alternating crushing acid-laced guitar solos with belted vocals over repetitive grooves. It’s the complementary nature of the bands’ sentiments more than their sounds that makes Aureola successful. While Hush Arbors’ gently melancholic folk comes from a world of foggy mountain walks and quiet late-night road trips, worlds removed from Arbouretum’s heavy landscapes, both projects have longing and displacement at their core. Singing out in exploration of feeling like a stranger to even the most familiar friends, looking for a place to be or finding that place and feeling disconnected from it as time moves on, each group takes a different sonic approach to sorting out the same world-weary feelings.
Review by Fred Thomas,
Tracklist:
01. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - Lowly Ghost (03:52)
02. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - Prayer of Forgetfulness (04:21)
03. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - Up Yr Coast (04:36)
04. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - People & Places (03:05)
05. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - The Sleeper (02:47)
06. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - New Scarab (06:32)
07. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - The Black Sun (05:46)
08. Arbouretum ft. Hush Arbors - St. Anthony’s Fire (07:22)
EAC log CD