Andrew Marlin (Mandolin Orange) Reflects On New Parenthood + Day-To-Day Beauty On Witching Hour, Out Today

Today, songwriter and mandolinist Andrew Marlin of the acclaimed folk duo Mandolin Orange shares Witching Hour, the first of a series of two solo LPs recorded during the COVID lockdown that are set to be released this month.Witching Hour finds the mandolinist and songwriter in a domestic headspace as he creates an array of American roots soundscapes that find beauty in the quotidian details of new parenthood and quarantine living. 

Lead single “Woodland Star” is a late-night lullaby that Marlin composed inspired by a painting of California wildflowers sitting above his daughter’s crib. Listen here:https://youtu.be/wT5jGGEDQng

Recorded with engineer Sean Sullivan in the late John Prine’s highly regarded studio The Butcher Shoppe shortly before it was set to be closed and replaced by a condo, Witching Hour reverberates with what Andrew describes as “a last hoorah kind of vibe.” Andrew and his collaborators — including guitarists Jordan Tice and Josh Oliver, fiddlers Christian Sedelmyer and Brittany Haas, and bassist Clint Mullican — play with casual mastery as they conjure a brilliant soundtrack to quiet household moments of anxiety, joy, monotony, excitement and everything in between.

Andrew’s next LP Fable & Fire is out on February 19. Recorded at Echo Mountain Studio in his home-state of North Carolina, he says that it’s “a sonic account of how the journey within has no destination. It’s like looking at the stars and knowing you’ll never touch them, or believing in magic and seeing it for what it isn’t. This is my most honest work to date and without saying anything it somehow says it all.”

Take a sneak peak into Fable & Fire with lead single “Salter Path / Throes Of Night” here: https://youtu.be/anLFPxzO558 

Witching Hour and Fable & Fire follow the runaway success of Mandolin Orange’s 2019 album Tides Of A Teardrop, which lead to the band’s first ever national TV performances on CBS Saturday and the TODAY Show as well as an NPR Tiny Desk. Rolling Stone says Tides is "compelling...a new step for the band, and one that's rewarding to hear."