Most of the music on Arborea consists of first-take improvisations, which accounts for the album's amorphous structure.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

The result is chilling at times, with Arborea using the empty spaces and silence as much as notes to create a remote and eerie world.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

But Arborea is mostly an experimental album, with the Currans bowing and plucking their stringed instruments to create spacey, ambient drones more than standard chord progressions.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

"Red Bird" is Arborea's most accessible and traditional track (it'd fit well on any Gillian Welch CD), while "Black Mountain Road" is one of its more experimental.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

Arborea's self-titled CD reflects the sepia-toned landscapes and creaky acoustic instrumentation of backwoods Americana, and the minor-key narratives tell sinister tales in the spirit of English murder ballads.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

Arborea is a bit melodramatic at times (the recurring rain stick could have been left out of the mix), and the spareness can leave listeners wanting something meatier.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'

Shanti and Buck Curran, who write and record under the name Arborea, are pitched as a husband-and-wife folk duo from Maine, but there's very little in their songs that resembles traditional roots music.

NPR: Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road'