Classical Folk Fusion for a Discerning Ear

The Arcadian Wild, Finch in the Pantry

Listening to the title track, an instrumental, from The Arcadian Wild’s second album, I couldn’t help noticing something unusual: the fiddle and guitar were playing different underlying rhythms. The fiddle, largely the lead instrument, followed a looping six-beat rhythm suggestive of an Irish seisiún, while the guitarist played a four-square supporting chord progression sounding almost like a chorus of snare drums. They weren’t in different time signatures, in the Stravinsky style, but came mighty close.

This musical erudition characterizes the entire album. The acoustic instrumentation comes straight from the bluegrass tradition, with guitar and mandolin trading roles as percussion and driving force, with a layer of fiddle atop them. But they use staggered arrangements, syncopated beats, and cathedral choir vocals. Clearly these musicians learned their craft from the honored elders of musical lore, but aren’t beholden to it. They have their own story, and their own way of telling it.

From the opening song, “Hey Runner,” the band establishes their impatience with convention for its own sake. Sung from the viewpoint of a volunteer concert organizer dealing with an arrogant showcase performer, guitarist Isaac Horn expresses the disappointment inherent in becoming a musician today. Mandolinist Lincoln Mick does something similar on the more upbeat, possibly radio-friendly “Food Truck Blues.” They occupy a Nashville where dues-paying dependency has become a full-time career stretching out for years.

Clearly this album comes from superior musicians more interested in creating music than kissing record executives’ rings. Complex arrangements that require more planning than today’s common studio jams, and dense, allusive lyrics, reflect artists who spend time thinking about their music. It wouldn’t be accurate to say these artists aren’t listenable, because they emphatically are; but they don’t permit listening with half an ear while driving or studying or cleaning. They write for active listeners.

Tracks like Mick’s “Silence, a Stranger” have intricate expressions reflecting this ethos. If you’re like me, you hear songs several times before you really begin processing the lyrics; initial attention stays on the music, which in this case is ethereal and dreamlike, but never wispy. Only on the fifth or sixth hearing do I catch lines like: “Stillness is a woman I’m too cowardly to kiss / A hallowed thing too holy for my unclean lips.”

The Arcadian Wild, l-r: Paige Park, Lincoln Mick, Isaac Horn

Seriously, I heard this album several times before catching how laden the lyrics are with references to literature, the Bible, and other sources. In today’s Nashville, songwriters tear off tracks hastily inside the studio, building them around radio-friendly hooks, because that’s what makes money. The Arcadian Wild are more contemplative and intricate, reflected in lyrics like Horn’s, from “Oh, Sleeper”: “I wonder who I’ll need to be today / They don’t need to change, I’ll relate.”

It bears noting, though this isn’t a Christian band, they’re clearly influenced by Christianity. Besides Mick’s quoted lyrics above, which reference Isaiah and Proverbs, it’s possible to spot other Biblical references throughout. Mick does this more directly, while Horn’s influence comes from liturgy (his compositions use cathedral vocals more than Mick’s). This culminates in the long final track, “A Benediction,” which includes Irish-style blessings, lyrics in Latin, and the line “Because death has lost already.”

This level of musical sophistication has fittingly won The Arcadian Wild a small but loyal following throughout the independent folk circuit; they maintain a busy schedule of house tours and intimate club venues. That’s how I encountered them, playing a small storefront church. Speaking to mandolinist Lincoln Mick following a concert, I mentioned I’d struggled to place why their sound feels familiar, before successfully placing it: they resemble Nickel Creek. “We’ll take it,” Mick said.

Horn and Mick, as composers and vocalists, have a thread of, let’s say, optimistic disappointment. They reflect the belief that things will get better soon, but they don’t know when, or why not yet. (Fiddler Paige Park is billed as full band member, but doesn’t compose or sing lead on any track; she replaces a banjo picker from the prior album. This band isn’t a boys’ club, necessarily, but the men obviously have creative control.)

Without a clear genre niche, this band may struggle to find an audience. Are they bluegrass? Classical fusion? Americana? My comparison to Nickel Creek isn’t flippant: both bands will enjoy a small but dedicated audience, which will probably spread by word-of-mouth rather than slick Nashville promotion. Maybe a review like this will bolster their public awareness. They certainly deserve that attention, because nobody else is creating music like theirs right now, and that’s a shame.