On The Surface of the Creek

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“The marriage between Cristofaro’s natural, humanistic lyrics and Nick Drake-esque acoustic guitar stylings immediately reel you in.” – Music Mecca

“Packed inside this short but potent debut album is the magic of Cristofaro’s songwriting that travels the shortest distance from the ears to your heart.” – Music in Minnesota

For serious travelers, it’s the contrast between past and present that makes itself known when you move through a landscape that contains both physical beauty and deep memories. What Minnesota-born singer, songwriter and guitarist Arlo Cristofaro explores on his new single “I-90” is the tension of travel as a mode of experience that’s inherently transitional.

Co-produced by Dex Wolfe and Pat Keen “I-90” is the first single from Arlo’s forthcoming debut EP On the Surface of the Creek, which is set for release June 21. Recorded at a small home studio near Northfield, Minnesota, the EP travels down highways familiar to fans of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter and recent work by the likes of Big Thief.

Arlo Cristofaro comes by his love of the Southern Minnesota landscape—and indeed, the emotional topography of the North American landscape—honestly, with time spent as a fly fisherman on the The Driftless area’s Root River, which gave  him the inspiration—and the space—he needed to compose “I-90” and much of On the Surface of the Creek. After moving around the country in his twenties and performing regionally and nationally, Arlo returned to his Southern Minnesota home and began raising Rambouillet sheep, which are known for their thick wool. It was in this atmosphere of home that the densely packed, electronic-folk music of his debut was born.

In “I-90,” Arlo’s fingerpicked guitar merges with subtle drumming and empathetically played bass lines, producing a sonic landscape of its own. Because there’s distance implicit in “I-90,” the rhythmic modulations and harmonic richness of the track add up to an examination of how we all travel through familiar spaces, never knowing what will bring us to a deeper knowledge of their influence on us. As Arlo sings in “I-90”: “Now we’re east of Bozeman/Dakota sky is all around us.” Like the similarly condensed narrative structures of Joni’s Hejira, the arc of the song brings us back home after a journey fraught with changes—some final, others temporary.

As Arlo says about “I-90”: “Writing this song felt like a movement of closure, the end of a particular chapter, and the opening of a new, different time of life. There’s grief in that transition, but there’s some hope too.” As with “I-90,” Arlo’s EP contains beautiful moments of transition that are rooted in a sense of place. The production by Pat Keen and Dex Wolfe adds modernist sheen to Arlo’s folk rock, and the result is stunningly beautiful, unique and life-affirming. “I-90” is an expansive sonic and lyrical journey that comes out of the great North American folk-poetry tradition: Townes Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell come to mind, and Arlo’s equally expansive, innovative fingerpicking, deep songwriting chops and feel for modernist folk are in the mix as well. In the hands of a master like Arlo Cristofaro, the journey takes you to places you haven’t even imagined yet via roads you know by heart.

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