Dave Heumann

Hush Arbors / Arbouretum

Review: Hush Arbors / Arbouretum’s Aureola

Hush Arbors / Arbouretum: Aureola

Hush Arbors / Arbouretum: Aureola (Thrill Jockey, 4/24/12)

“New Scarab”

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Bands that traffic in psychedelic/stoner-rock orthodoxy often follow a dogmatism that rings shallow. In one fell swoop — three songs, to be precise — Baltimore quartet Arbouretum effectively lays waste to anyone who’s ever bowed at the altar of the fuzzed-out guitar to mask (or revel in) creative bankruptcy.

Nathan Bell

Nathan Bell: Post-Punk Banjoist Pursues Color Through Sound

Nathan Bell: ColorsNathan Bell: Colors (Lancashire and Somerset, 4/1/11)

Nathan Bell: “Pilgrim…”

Banjo impresario and multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bell’s interest in color isn’t a typical one. He’s not a painter or a designer searching for the perfect palette to represent something physical or tangible. Instead, his attraction to color is based on its relationship to sound.

Bell has undertaken a unique and daunting project, one with no external inspiration and no guide for how to draw conclusions, wherein he and friends Peter Townsend (drums), Kate Porter (cello), and Liz Merideth (viola and violin) wrote songs based on a series of colors. The resultant album is the aptly named Colors, released in 2011 by the British label Lancashire and Somerset.

Bell says that the concept of color as sound isn’t as abstract and unnatural as it seems. Music naturally evokes images in the mind of the listener, so colors aren’t much of a stretch. Different sounds naturally fit with certain colors, while others are combinations that may shake the listener’s perspective and emotions.

“Color is sound as sound is color,” Bell says from his new home-away-from-home in Brazil, where he has been playing and recording with one of his bands, Brassa Bell. “And as one color is made from many colors, each song reserves its place on the palette. The imagery of color in combination of sound provokes a three-dimensional perspective on the album.