Arbouretum’s Latest “The Gathering” Recorded at Brooklyn’s Vacation Island

Psychedelic folk-rock band Arbouretum will release their fourth album, The Gathering, on Thrill Jockey Records in February. In preview, the Baltimore-based band has released the track, “Destroying To Save.”

Listen to “Destroying To Save” here:
“Listen here”

"The Gathering" comes out via Thrill Jockey in February '11.

The Gathering, largely inspired by The Red Book by Carl Jung, was recorded by producer/engineer Matt Boynton at Vacation Island Recording in Brooklyn.  Boynton, who recorded most of Arbouretum’s ’07 release, Rites of Uncovering, worked with the band to realize their vision for The Gathering through some heavy experimentation in the studio.

Arbouretum switched things up to achieve a more expansive sound on The Gathering, with writer/singer/guitarist Dave Heumann restructuring the band’s instrumentation from what had been two guitars, bass, and drums, replacing one of the guitars with Matthew Pierce’s keyboards and percussion. Work in the studio was about capturing expressive live band performances, vivid sonic details and using some the newly opened space for further experimentation, i.e. as the album announcement relays:

The vocal on the track “Waxing Crescents” was recorded and then processed through the filter section of an early ARP synth, which was manually adjusted in real time while a medium-long delay was applied to an otherwise unprocessed copy. The effect is subtle and unsettling. On their version of “Highwayman,” keyboardist/percussionist Matthew Pierce’s Rhodes was augmented by a variety of synths, specifically, a Juno, a Nord Lead, and an ARP organ-like patch processed by a tremolo pedal.

Arbouretum will be touring the U.S. in February and March before traveling to Europe. Stay up on the band via http://arbouretum.blogspot.com.

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