Folkadelphia Session: Mandolin Orange

We welcome back our friends Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin, the duo Mandolin Orange, to Folkadelphia for an encore in-studio session almost a year after their first. As much things have changed in that time, so much has stayed the same. Working somewhere within their Americana, folk, and roots framework, Mandolin Orange continues to create music with an undeniable chemistry and intimacy.
It’s at once emotionally immediate and spaciously wide open – the impact of a note on the violin is upfront and powerful, but the feeling of its sustain resonates long after the sounds fade out. The two achieved this effect on their album by stripping out extraneous barriers between the songs and them, putting up a single microphone, and singing & playing their instruments while facing each other. It’s a wonderful reflection of their live performances. The biggest thing that changed in the time since we last invited Mandolin Orange in for a session? Of course, a new album called Such Jubilee, which was released in 2015 by one of the preeminent roots labels Yep Roc Records.

Last May, fresh off their album release, Mandolin Orange visited Folkadelphia at Drexel University’s Studio A and with the assistance of Drexel Music Industry students, recorded a brand new in-studio session featuring some of the tremendous songs culled from Such Jubilee.