Over the weekend Sheila and I celebrated our anniversary. We traditionally buy each other shoes (yes, this happened). This year I also bought myself a gift in the form of…fancy new headphones!
Better than any gift though, is spending all the great years with my best friend and the love of my life. Here’s to you, Sheila!
Disc 1728 is…Such Jubilee
Artist: Mandolin Orange
Year of Release: 2015
What’s up with the Cover? After the sun set we looked for a place of shelter other than under the expansive night sky. “Oh, look”, we exclaimed, “there’s a not-creepy-at-all farmhouse over there. That looks safe!”
How I Came To Know It: I think I read a review for “Blindfaller” (reviewed back at Disc 1064) and drilled backward from there.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Mandolin Orange albums and this one comes it at #2, just behind the peerless excellence that is “Blindfaller”. This is the last review of Mandolin Orange albums in my collection (for now) and so here’s a recap:
- Blindfaller: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1064)
- Such Jubilee: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
- Tides of a
Teardrop/Sing and Play Traditionals: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 1274)
Rating: 4 stars
If you are eager for a memorable first listen on a new set of headphones, you can’t do much better than “Such Jubilee”, folk/bluegrass duo Mandolin Orange’s fourth album and easily one of their best.
Mandolin Orange is Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz; multi-instrumentalists and gifted vocalists who lay down thoughtful soundscapes that are as beautiful and natural as the flow of a creek through a stand of fir trees. Like being deep in the woods, the feeling you will get is one of majestic isolation. A place where life quietens down and your ears open up to a constellation of sound.
In this case, the constellations are traditional bluegrass instrumentation, played with an ease and gentleness that blows over you like a chinook wind, warm and refreshing. This is the temple of the mid-range and natural. Inside a calm will descend over you, your soul restored.
The first thing you will pick up from Mandolin Orange is the sublime playing. Unsurprisingly, the mandolin work is as good as you will hear in this world or any other. If there are mandolins in heaven, they will sound like how Andrew Marlin plays one on this record. In lesser bluegrass configurations, the mandolin is a glorified timekeeper, but on “Such Jubilee” it is multifaceted, simultaneously holding down the beat while starring in the melody.
Frantz is no slouch on the violin either, brilliant and perfectly placed. Then there is the banjo (Marlin again) and some sublime guitar work (both of them). How the hell each of these two can master even one of these instruments at this level is boggling, never mind two or three.
But what I like most about this record is how everything is played with such a carefree and unhurried way. These songs dance in your ears like fireflies on a summer night, winking on and off. It isn’t just the new headphones talking here, either – I went for a run today and listened on decidedly average earbuds designed for sport over sound. It was still great. Maybe not quite as arrestingly beautiful but still noticeably great.
The vocals of both Marlin and Frantz are both excellent. Neither of them sings with big power, choosing instead to match their approach to their playing style. Understated, and graceful, they each take the lead from time to time, or sing in harmony, as each song’s structure demands.
Lyrically, the songs also have a pastoral quality, with many songs hearkening back to memory, sometimes of events and other times just a mood or emotional experience. The best narrative is captured on “Rounder”, a song about a rough and careless criminal passing his final night before being hanged. The song is replete with understated and evocative imagery. My favourite lines:
“I wore my pride on
my bad side
And on the other get my hand close by the trigger
Some folks are guided by the weight of their tongues
But we all fall silent at the end of a gun”
While not all the songs are as literal as “Rounder” many cover resignation and heartache, exploring them with that slow and relaxed roll that lets you approach hard thoughts free and easy, making you ready to confront your demons or make peace with them as occasion allows.
The only bad word to say about “Such Jubilee” is that it isn’t quite “Blindfaller” but there’s no shame in that. Taken together these two albums are must-have works of grace and beauty.
Best tracks: Old Ties and Companions, Little World, Rounder, That Wrecking Ball, Of Which There Is No Like
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