COVID PROTOCOL & FAQs
For 25 years and counting, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem has been uplifting audiences with a deeply-brewed blend of wit, camaraderie, and musicality. Their sound is “tight, with stylish, unexpected choices” (Acoustic Guitar), mixing New Orleans grooves, rafter-shaking harmonies, fiddle, electric and acoustic guitar, and junk percussion on incisive original songs and wild card covers. “Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem dig deep into their collective souls, finding joy in the moment, peace in the harmonies, and rapture in the rhythmic drive.” (The Hartford Courant).
ABOUT RANI ARBO
Harmony, rhythm, indelible songs – these are the hallmarks of Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, the New England based folk quartet now in its 25th year. From the Newport Folk Festival to California World Music Festival and beyond, this band’s steadfast brew of wit, camaraderie, and musicality leaves audiences everywhere humming and hopeful, spirits renewed.
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem are Rani Arbo (fiddle, guitar), Andrew Kinsey (bass, banjo, ukulele), Anand Nayak (electric and acoustic guitars) and Scott Kessel (percussion). At the helm, Arbo is “blessed with an unmistakable voice, both light and sultry, with a hint of tremolo and smoke” (Acoustic Guitar). With Kinsey and Nayak’s vibrant baritones and Kessel’s resonant bass, the band’s lockstep harmonies can shake the rafters or hush the room. Arbo’s fiddle style traverses blues and swing, while Nayak’s guitar stretches from folk to rock and everything in between. Kinsey’s old-time bass anchors the deep groove of Kessel’s homemade percussion kit — a collection of cardboard boxes, tin cans, caulk tubes, bottle-cap rattles, and a vinyl suitcase.
In the lineage of string bands who blur the boundaries of American roots music, Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem have always been standard-bearers, with a particular knack for pairing words and music. From bluegrass barnstormers to sultry swing, old-time gospel to bluesy folk-rock, they turn in lush arrangements with “stylish, unexpected choices” (Acoustic Guitar). Original songs fit seamlessly aside artful re-workings of Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, and May Erlewine. Writes Maverick Magazine, “How refreshing to hear something that sounds as if it has come from people who are genuinely original thinkers. As soon as Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem strike up, you realize this is a band that is unpredictable and impossible to pigeonhole. But, what a thoroughly mellifluous melange — sophisticated, soulful and always handled with care and a lightness of touch that is part folk/jazz/ country, part blues/old time, and all good. There is a togetherness that flows right through the heart of the performance. It never gets too clever and always remains understated and classy.”
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem have released seven albums on Signature Sounds.