Heartfelt Tenderness: Mandolin Orange and their soft and lonesome sound
Credit- Kendall Bailey Photography
I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a very long time. Mandolin Orange are without doubt my favourite band and I’m really not sure any other collection of songs have embedded themselves in my mind and soul quite as much as those of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz.
The first exposure I had to the group was through their NPR TinyDesk concert, and although they only played three songs- “Golden Embers”, “The Wolves”, and “Wildfire” -I was already hooked. I think what first really caught my eye- and ears -was the way that Emily and Andrew bounced off each other. Whether it was the beautiful blended harmonies or the little knowing looks they gave each other throughout their set, I could see that these were two people that were born to play music together.
Frantz and Marlin performing for NPR’s TinyDesk Concert/ Credit- NPR, Shuran Huang
You could all-too-easily label Mandolin Orange as “just another americana band” and you would be half right: they certainly can be broadly labelled as an Americana band but they are so much more than ordinary. There is just something special that I’m not sure I exactly put my finger on.
The first place to start is the music. I’d say the majority of Mandolin Orange’s music works beautifully as just a simple two-piece, made up of Marlin playing either guitar or mandolin and Frantz playing either fiddle or guitar. It is these performances that you can appreciate the band's consideration of space. If you want an example of this then have a listen to their Spotify Sessions on- you guessed it -Spotify. Using space is an art in music that is really taking hold at the moment. Albums like Kacey Musgraves Golden Hour and both of Taylor Swift’s new albums- folklore & evermore -, all use space beautifully. There is a tendency in music to think that every beat and every inch of the musical picture needs to be an opportunity to make a sound but I find, and the examples mentioned seem to prove, that leaving spaces is so much more impactful. It can make a word linger that second longer or a note resonate much deeper.
Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin/ Credit- Kendall Bailey Photography
‘Thinking ain’t no past time and thinking ain’t no friend
when all you do is sit around and think about the end’
“Big Men in the Sky”, Hard Hearted Stranger/Haste Make
While these duo performances help to get to the soul of the tunes, there is something to be said for the more expansive performances that come on the groups six albums. The work Emily and Andrew have done with their long time collaborators Josh Oliver, Clint Mullican, and Joe Westerlund show just how good they really are. The albums blend more traditional forms of bluegrass and folk- and sometimes country -, influenced by everyone from the Stanley Brothers to Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and Emmylou Harris with more modern ideas of indie folk and Americana. You can feel yourself being lost in the sonic landscape that the group creates.
Andrew Marlin, while also being the sole songwriter for the band, also produces all of the bands albums and you can really feel the hand of the songwriter on the shoulder of the producer. The music and lyrics blend perfectly and come together with the express aim of furthering the songs themselves. The tidal wave of tone, feeling, and balance that Mandolin Orange’s songs present is really something else.
Musically, both are amazing. Emily’s fiddle playing is wonderful: she makes an instrument that can sometimes feel harsh and attacking, seem tender and comforting. She doesn’t belt lyrics out when she sings but she does firmly find herself in the tradition of country and folk singers like Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Iris DeMent that, for what they lack in power, more than make up for in tenderness, feeling, and vulnerability.
‘All I ever wanted to be
to you is what you are to me
But now she’s the one, you call home
And I’m just the one you leave’
“Cold Lovers Waltz”, Blindfaller
Credit- andrewmarlin.com
Andrew’s mandolin playing is out of this world, taking the technical ability of bluegrass music and combining it with the softness of folk music and his finger-picking guitar is excellent too. Andrew has, between now and the last Mandolin Orange album, release a number of instrumental albums. Addressing the emotion he put into the newest of these albums, Marlin said in an Instagram post that ‘This is my most honest work to date and without saying anything it somehow says it all’; there is no denying that he’s right. Like Emily’s voice, Andrew doesn’t have the kind of tough or gravelly voice that often comes with folk or country music. A good amount of twang comes through from his North Carolina accent but there is also a gentleness that perfectly matches the music and lyrics he writes.
For me, the most enchanting part of what Mandolin Orange offers is their lyrics. Marlin’s songwriting is poetic and often metaphorical but in a way that still touches deeply, as if he had sat down and listened to the listeners heart. The subject matters the group cover in their lyrics vary hugely but they are certainly not afraid of tackling heartache or loss; as Andrew quipped at one of their shows “we don’t have a lot of love songs.”
‘Love of mine, sweet love of mine, I’ll soon return
to the land to make room for the new
I’ll give hell my worst, and the good to this earth
As for Heaven it was found in you’
“Until the Last Light Fades”, This Side of Jordan
The few love songs that the band has are sweet and tender but they often do so much more than just simply express love, although it is a complex emotion. Their song “Hey Adam”, for instance, while also a passionate protest song in support for the LGBTQ+ Community, also includes some of the most touching lyrics of any love songs I’ve heard.
‘Many flames are rising
Many hearts will die
Well I am lying in your shadow but I know you’d rather
lay by my side’
“Hey Adam”, This Side of Jordan
Credit- Kendall Bailey Photography
Throughout their music, Mandolin Orange tackle the feeling of loss from many angles. Whether it be a sense of lost love or youth, or even a sense of loss of a place you’ve never been but only seen like in their song “Little Worlds”, which tells the story of a narrator that has lived their life watching the Earth from space, never going there, only seeing it from afar but somehow still missing it.
‘When did all the good times turn to hard lines, on my face
Leave me so far from this place, right by your side
When did all the sad songs, that we used to know
Come to haunt me so, each lonely night’
“My Blinded Heart”, Blindfaller
Credit- ncarts.org
‘Well I remember the night, she sat down beside me
She cried love was a ring that won’t end, well I was handed a lie
And now the only thing, I know of a ring,
is the circle my glass leaves behind’
“Waltz About Whiskey”, This Side of Jordan
While the group doesn't present the traditional folk image of protest musicians, politics does certainly come into Mandolin Orange’s music. Comments on everything from religion, climate change, Trump’s travel ban, the history of racism in the US and- as mentioned above -LGBTQ+ rights are all covered. One example of how Andrew takes complex issues and makes them into poetic and heartfelt lyrics is their song on the bad side of religion: “Gospel Shoes.” It is easy to see that these songs are not political for politics sake but that the band really cares about the issues at hand.
‘Freedom was a simple word so reverent and true
A long time ago it meant the right to choose,
who you love and how to live, now it’s so misused;
twisted by the politics of men in Gospel shoes’
“Gospel Shoes”, Blindfaller
The music Mandolin Orange makes is tender, heartfelt, personal, and, above all, poetic. The musical partnership that Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin inhabit provides the perfect foundations for Marlin’s lyrics. They really are unlike anything I’ve ever listened to; whether you want music that gets to the heart of deep and complex feelings or whether you want to hear some face-melting mandolin solos then I can’t recommend Mandolin Orange enough.