New Music From Arbor Labor Union, Michael Potter
Arbor Labor Union
New Petal Instants
(Arrowhawk Records)
Arbor Labor Union last checked in circa 2016. The Atlanta-based indie rock foursome had just released its Sub Pop Records debut, I Hear You, an album that reconciled a love of bashing away at hippie-ish Americana imagery, albeit abstract, steeped in post-grunge tempos.
Since then, singer and guitarist Bo Orr, guitar player Brian Adams, bass player Ryan Evers, and drummer Bryan Scherer have communed with a more celebratory muse. With the arrival of New Petal Instants, the group parts ways with Sub Pop and settles in with Athens, GA’s burgeoning indie label Arrowhawk Records.
With the change in scenery comes a newly-found comfort in allowing the music to follow its own freewheeling drift—to a degree. Songs like “Flowerhead”, “Big Face In the Sky”, and “Crushed By Fear Destroyer” take a cue from the Minutemen or the Meat Puppets’ affinities for a psychedelic twang sprouting up in the shadow of hardcore’s penchant for getting straight to the point.
Each song revolves around themes of going walkabout in an urban setting and the insight gained along the way. Orr’s neighborly voice matches the raga-like guitar melodies of “Under The Tree” while speaking-singing lyrics such as, “Listen to the between of things to hear the all,” putting into words the transcendental subtlety the group brings into focus here.
It is in the spaces between where everything from the sounds of unidentified wildlife in the woods to occasional banjo flourishes add depth. These elements, though, can be easily overlooked as the group thrashes, churns, and grows increasingly comfortable fleshing out a more unified sound around the barreling rhythms in “Give Us The Light” and “Pipers Play’d”.
As such, New Petal Instants is most effectively taken in as a colorful whole experience that’s as pleasurable—and profound—as a mid-summer trek into the woods.
Michael Potter
Winter Music
(michaelpotter.bandcamp.com)
Winter Music is one of the more overtly experimental albums in Michael Potter’s body of solo guitar work. It’s also one of the most fascinatingly beautiful releases to bear his name yet. What is essentially a compilation of improvised recordings from split cassettes with other artists comes together as a conceptually snow-covered inward journey.
Three songs hang in a long, sustained round of heavy reverb, steel strings, a floor tom, and keys, giving rise to both traditional picking and massive swells of dreamlike drone music.
“Winter Jam” first appeared on the Living Room Visions Winter 2014 compilation (Sunup). A slow kerrang reveals a desolate folk-blues dirge of minimalism pushed to the max, sinking into a groove with each rhythmic pass. “Winter Clouds” is a previously unreleased number from 2008, offering a snapshot of a time when Potter was learning to record using a computer.
It’s also the first time he felt comfortable using his own voice. Here, all of the ghostly sung-spoken parts and the chorus of ‘ooohhs’ and ‘aaaahhhs’ add layers of texture to the song. Since then, Potter has grown increasingly confident using vocals on his own and under the Electric Nature moniker.
Here, the process reveals as much depth and character in his voice as his later, more realized offerings. “Ode To CM” comes from a 2017 split tape with cosmic-nomadic troubadour Frank Hurricane. A wintery wash of drones sets a tone of Zenlike bliss before Potter reaches an ecstatic state with a minimal psych rock jam and blistering noise that morphs into a fully formed song—kind of.
Although Winter Music is a series of unrelated one-offs, there are enough intriguing and stylistic moments that tie each one together as a compelling point of entry into Potter’s ever-growing and ever-elusive catalog of tapes, ever-growing collection of Bandcamp files, and in-the-moment meditations on the elements.