Single review – Bone-Saw by The Arboretum
Release 2nd May 2020
The accompanying missive expressed both an understanding of our collective zeitgeist and what the band were hoping to articulate. The toxic line in the email –“in these uncertain, dark and challenging times,” succinctly captures the defining spirit of contemporary UK. Resultantly, this challenging and dark single, Bone-Saw, certainly captures the pervasive current mood and creates a not insignificant soundscape…
The malevolent mood of the track is at odds with the band’s name – The Arboretum -but the title of the track, Bone-Saw reflects the grating and grinding quality of the single and perhaps, modernity; indeed the oxymoronic names add to the conflicting nature of our current predicament: of both isolation and the coming together. Conversely, Bone-Saw alarmingly magnifies the misery but rather reassuringly, The Arboretum offer a slender glimpse of sunshine through the canopy of leaves and branches – or, in their own words: “hope.”
Pressing play…the inhuman industrialised wall of electronica contrasts with the sensitive and the ethereal breathless human voice…this is Munch’s the Scream put to music. However, for the informed employing their inquisitive imagination, is our figure screaming in horror or laughing out loud?
Imagine. Fade in, and the camera pans slowly down on to a deserted cityscape from above, as the opening credits roll for a new 4 part series on Channel 4: “The Pandemic.” A voiceover opines: “This is a fictionalised account of the last year in a virus-blighted world but the story is true to the facts.” The soundscape accompanying the opening is The Arboretum’s single, Bone-Saw, and the five minute musical vignette would not seem out of place, as the story of the creeping shadow of the robotic virus unfolds…
The Arboretum’s new album, Falls the Shadow, will be released later in the year but in the meantime several more singles will be released to accompany Bone-Saw. I for one will be intrigued to see what else they have in their tool box.
By: The Swilgate Scuttler
Find out more
https://www.facebook.com/musicofthearboretum/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2QR89mKOCdoHv7Cb6XYnvw