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HOUGH SHE’S PERFORMED IN PUBLIC since the age of seven, Rani Arbo may be best known as lead singer and fiddler for the neo-bluegrass group Salamander Crossing, whose concerts delighted audiences for almost ten years. Now her eclectic collective, daisy mayhem, continues to break ground across many genres. Both traditional and adventuresome in spirit, the band can serve up gospel, blues, sea chanteys, love songs, and swing tunes in the space of one set. “It’s a combination of melody, lyrics, emotion, and entertainment that appeals to me,” Arbo says, “and it arrives in many different forms. We’ve chosen to put on a show based on those qualities, rather than on a specific genre.”
Part of the group’s dynamism stems from Rani’s immersion in different kinds of music — she played classical cello all through her childhood, to be seduced by the fiddle and its varied repertoire when she got older (think swing, blues, Appalachian and gypsy styles). She in turn seduces us with a voice that is sultry, soulful, and just plain gorgeous, punching out a swing tune or laying down a blues or ballad. Bandmate Andrew Kinsey sings harmony and lead (as he did in Salamander Crossing); plays bass, banjo, whistle, and ukulele, not to mention penning songs for the group. Guitarist Anand Nayak joins in the vocals and puts the guts in the strings, and master percussionist Scott Kessel sends the band into warp mode with his Drumship Enterprise, an ingenious assemblage of recycled rhythmic materials.
Getting the idea this is a really fun band? As they bravely try to sum up the mayhem: “it’s a greasy pop-, jazz- and appalachian-informed string band with wicked percussion grooves, killer vocal harmonies, and great lead singing.” Bring the whole family.
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Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem may be the Next Big Thing in New England folk music. But Arbo, the smart, sultry fiddler-singer who leads the hot band from Western Massachusetts, is a far mountain holler from the brooding folk-pop songwriters who have dominated the local scene recently. On the band’s delightful disc on Signature, “Cocktail Swing,” they frolic through classic western swing, vintage pop, and country chestnuts, and their own clever, timeless tunes. Arbo’s voice is smart and sultry, with winking nuances that seem always to be sharing secrets with us. Her fiddle is at once elegant and sinewy, shimmering with sly wit and mystery. She is, in all the important ways, already a star of the first order. SCOTT ALARIK, The Boston Globe
