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Mandolin Orange will perform at Stuart’s Opera House this Sunday in a show opened up by Scandinavian folk duo My Bubba. (Submitted)

Mandolin Orange Headed To Stuart’s Opera House This Weekend


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Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio welcomes Mandolin Orange on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m., My Bubba will open the show. Mandolin Orange visited before at our own 2015 Nelsonville Music Festival and won crowds over with their mix of folk, country, bluegrass, and fantastic songwriting.

Lean in to Mandolin Orange’s new album, Blindfaller, and it’s bound to happen. You’ll suddenly pick up on the power and devastation lurking in its quietude, the doom hiding beneath its unvarnished beauty. You’ll hear the way it magnifies the intimacy at the heart of the North Carolina duo’s music, as if they created their own musical language as they recorded it. Released in September on Yep Roc Records, Blindfaller builds on the acclaim of Mandolin Orange’s breakthrough debut on the label, 2013’s This Side of Jordan, and its follow-up, last year’s Such Jubilee.

“When we finished Such Jubilee, I started writing these songs with a different goal in mind. I thought about how I would write songs for somebody else to record,” Marlin explains. “I ended up with a bunch of songs like that, but we chose ones that I still felt personally connected to.”

Holed up at the Rubber Room studio in Chapel Hill, N.C., with a full band this time around, they laid down the tracks in a week between touring. They’ve always been keen on the notion that drawn-out recording sessions don’t necessarily yield better results. A good song, and just one good take, will always shine through any studio sorcery. Rolling Stone describes Mandolin Orange as “Warm and inviting, Marlin and Frantz’s harmonies are as soft and familiar as an old comforter. But it turns out that its devotional songs are to you rather than about you. Even when throngs are listening, Marlin and Frantz sound like they’re singing privately, just for themselves. The album is a secret to share, and that’s part of the charm.”

Scandinavian folk duo My Bubba make soft, soulful, sensual music that’s as playful as it is powerful. Together, My Larsdotter and Bubba Tomasdottir have toured with Damien Rice, co-written music with Matthew E. White, recorded with Noah Georgeson and stepped on Bryan Adams’ toes. Literally. Released in April 2016, My Bubba’s new album, Big Bad Good was recorded with Shahzad Ismaily (Will Oldham, Jolie Holland) at his Brooklyn studio, Figure 8 Recording. The songs were recorded as they were written, and most of the takes are among the first times the songs were ever sung – allowing the record to portray the immediate rawness and intimacy of a newborn song.
Tickets are on sale now, reserved seats are $17 in advance or $22 at the door, box seats are $20 in advance or $25 at the door and can be purchased by calling (740) 753-1924 or at www.stuartsoperahouse.org.