Itâs been two years since Mandolin Orangeâs prior album, Tides of a Teardrop, which took them everywhere from the stage of Nashvilleâs fabled Ryman Auditorium to a placement on the Billboard 200 album chart. Since touring for that album wound down, the duo of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz has been mostly hunkered down at home in North Carolina, tending to their young daughter Ruby while riding out the pandemic.
Marlin has also used the time to develop a growing solo-album habit, releasing instrumental collections. February saw the near-simultaneous release of Witching Hour and Fable & Fire, following up 2018âs Buried in a Cape. And while both albums feature the same cast of players from Mandolin Orangeâs circle, each has a very different feel. Witching Hour is billed as âA Sonic Account Of How The Journey Within Has No Destination,â while Fable & Fire is âA Soundtrack To Quotidian Wonder.â BGS caught up with Marlin by phone on the day before his 34th birthday.
BGS: How old is your daughter now?
Marlin: Almost two-and-a-half. Itâs been a lot of not sleeping, but a fun time, too. She likes to strum a little bit. There are certainly instruments we donât let her play, but we do have a few beater guitars we let her have some fun with. She loves to sing, too, sheâll break out in song randomly all the time. âLonesome Whistleâ from that record we put out in 2016, Blindfaller, she loves to sing that song. She has such a good memory on her, itâs amazing. All kids probably do, itâs just that sheâs the only one Iâve ever spent that much time with. Itâs fascinating, how much she retains and can recite.
Do you spend much time practicing?
It varies. I did sit down with a metronome and my first cup of coffee this morning to work on some tunes. I came to the mandolin âlate,â at 20, when I feel like my favorites started when they were 7 or 8. In terms of foundational skills, I have to go back and relearn some things. I love the instrument so much, I want to think in terms of longevity. Figure out techniques that keep me relaxed without hurting myself on it. And if I get an idea, a melody that hops into my head, Iâll follow it because the most important thing is to keep writing. I try to be aware of my body, stay in tune with whatâs happening. If I feel cramps or aches, Iâll stop and try to assess whatâs happening. Thatâs the reason to practice technique, to relax and be comfortable without overworking joints harder than you need to. I hope to prevent that, but I do play a lot and time is not on my side.
Itâs not unusual for guitar players to own multiple guitars, but what about mandolin players?
I can actually kinda mark what year something was based on which mandolin I was playing. For the past 11 years, Iâve gotten a new one about every two years. I finally got a Lloyd Loar in January of 2019 and I think I found my mandolin, at least for a while. There are all these different aspects of tones you want to get, and itâs different from player to player. Different instruments make you play different things you normally might not think of. It completely rearranges my musical mind, playing different instruments. As much as I envy my heroes having iconic instruments they always use, I enjoy picking up different mandolins, the different voices you get.
Theyâre almost like little people. You donât tell your friends how to act, so why would you tell an instrument how to sound? Just work within what it does best and it will teach you how to pull out different aspects of your playing. All the songs on Fable & Fire were written on a Gibson A2 1921 that I bought on a whim on reverb.com, and it turned out to be a great little tune-writer. Every time I pick it up, seems like I write a song on it. And I wrote all the songs on Fable & Fire on that little instrument in about four weeks. I didnât record with it because when it comes down to a record, Iâd rather use the Lloyd Loar. I know its voice and tone, how to work its dynamics. But that little A2 has a very cool little voice, too.
How do you differentiate these two albums?
For me the concepts set them apart. They have very different grooves, melodic ideas and modes. Witching Hour was written over two yearsâ time, where I basically just took a handful of tunes I thought were strong enough to put on a record. So thatâs what you hear, two yearsâ worth of material. But Fable & Fire is very cohesive start to finish, a set of songs written to be played side by side with each other. Witching Hour is a scrapbook, Fable & Fire is a picture.
Fable & Fire, especially, has some pretty exotic song titles. What does âLeeward Shore/Crooked Road to Braceyâ mean?
(Fiddler) Christian Sedelmyerâs girlfriend Alexis really likes the sound of the Gibson A2 I wrote those songs on. She kept trying to convince me to play that mandolin on this record, and I wanted to honor the fact that sheâd really listened and cared. Her middle name is Lee, what could I do with that? Well, leeward shore is the shore that faces the wind, an old nautical term. I named that A2 âGaleâ because it has this sound that feels like it moves a lot of air — I joke that it could blow a candle out. So I thought it was fitting to call the first part of that medley âLeeward Shore,â the shore-facing wind, because she was such a proponent of Gale.
Then âCrooked Road to Bracey,â thatâs a town not far from where I grew up. Just over the North Carolina line in Virginia, and it was the only close-by town with an all-night diner. So if we were super-hungry at 4 a.m., weâd hop in the car and go to Bracey. Pretty nerdy! But youâve gotta find inspiration somewhere. Stories like that end up being part of the bones of these tunes. But one of my favorite parts of instrumental music is that itâs all irrelevant once someone else starts to listen. Thatâs important now especially, because everybody needs something to latch onto. Instrumental music is so open, it allows an infinite amount of interpretation.
âHawk Is a Muleâ is another — and also the only words you say on either record. Whatâs that story?
We were on the West Coast for the Buried in a Cape tour. Clint (Mullican) the bass player can spot a hawk from a mile away â he sees them before they see him. He kept pointing out all these hawks as we made our way toward Canada. And being East Coasters, well, we were excited to hop on into the dispensaries out there. We, um, accumulated quite a bit and wondered what to do with it before crossing into Canada. It became a joke, training a hawk to carry it into Canada for us, âlike a drug mule but a hawk.â I ended up calling that melody âHawk Is a Mule,â and thatâs how it came to be. Just a bunch of people in a van making fun jokes.
In terms of writing, are instrumentals easier to come up with since they donât have words?
It depends on the mindset Iâm in. Iâve practiced the mandolin a lot in quarantine and also listened to a lot of instrumental music, so thatâs been easier to write because of what Iâm into now. When I sit down to write, I try not to force it. Just do what Iâm into and play what I feel, and right now instrumentals are what Iâm into.
Out of these 21 songs, which are your favorites to play?
Theyâre all right in my wheelhouse since I wrote them, but some really translate with the band. âOxcart Manâ on Fable & Fire, I love the way that one feels. It has a lot of ins and outs that give it a lot of life, especially Nat (Smith) on the cello. Heâs able to go back and forth between plucking and powerful bowing. I donât know how he does it but he works the dynamics beautifully, especially on that tune. The tone of the cello makes it almost seem to hide itself, but if you muted that it would take a lot of the pulse out of the tune. What the guys do on that song makes it one of my favorites.
Another is âFarewell to Holly Bluff/The Watch House.â Everybody really pushes the tone on that one. I hardly play that melody at all because it was so great to be part of the rhythm. Jordan (Tice) is a great lead guitarist, but heâs the rhythm engine here and ended up doing a lot less melodic passes than rhythm. His drive is a key element of both records.
âJenny and the Dulac,â the last song on Witching Hour, has a groove and major-minor feel thatâs unlike anything Iâve ever done before instrumentally. Christian and Brittany (Haas)âs twin fiddle parts really elevated that moment to where we were looking at each other going, âThis is the coolest shit ever, letâs never let this song end.â Everybody was exploring the fretboard in a way that did not seem forced, just wide open. I love everybodyâs solos, they all have a lot of personality.
Besides music and the people close to you, what do you look to for inspiration as a writer?
Itâs less about looking for things and more about being open to it when you feel it. Either you turn those receptors on, or off. Iâve been writing since I was 14 and itâs been a major part for so long that Iâve almost always got the receptors on. Lately, especially, some of the instrumental titles come from snippets of childrenâs books I read to Ruby. And the other day, we were at the park and heard some people singing âHappy Birthdayâ to a little kid named Leo. That got me to thinking: âItâs Pisces season, a Pisces named Leo, that could be a fun thing.â
The muse is important to just keep on so that when something presents itself, I can snatch it and hold onto it forever. Not to get too heavy about it, but it does come at a cost. Iâll be talking to people about a memory of theirs from a tour five or six years ago, and realize that if you keep those receptors on so much you might not be quite as present as you want to be. Itâs a balance, especially with Ruby. Iâve learned to turn that off when I need to so I can be very present with her. Iâve seen just how fast time with her flashes by. I donât know where the last two and a half years have gone.
Photo Credit: Lindsey Rome