For those who dig their acoustic folk on the mystic side, there’s guitarist Buck Curran’s solo debut, Immortal Light. One-half of Arborea, Curran’s first album under his own name invokes swarming natural forces, looking for the borderline between the real and the sublime and, maybe, the supernatural. On “New Moontide,” Curran is joined by Arborea partner Shanti Deschaine, who provides the requisite ethereal voice to help set the course, though Curran’s guitar ably handles that task without the compass aid of lyrics. On instrumental compositions like the warm electric drone of “Andromeda” and the interlocking acoustic piece “River Unto Sea,” layered guitar parts move together in gentle consort, conjuring the drift of
currents and achieving the time of no time, of stillness within movement. In the midst, Curran and Deschaine take a striking minor-keyed turn through John Fogerty’s “Bad Moon Rising,” always a topical song in a dystopia, and perhaps one of its few real reinventions since Creedence Clearwater Revival’s original. The album-concluding 13-minute title track synthesizes all: the carefully rendered acoustics, the painterly electrics, the sacred drones, Deschaine’s ethereal vocal presence (and harmonium) and—for a long moment—tangible transportation.