MANDOLIN ORANGE If the notion of an album is a thing of the past in this downloading world, does that make a double-LP, like this Chapel Hill duo’s new sophomore effort, kind of a double-negative = a positive thing? Well, sorta. Haste Make is the title of the first LP, a quartet date built on folk-country traditions where Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz go for a Gram & Emmylou-thing over shuffling beats and the occasional fiddle or swirling Wurlitzer. Hard Hearted Stranger, the other disc, is a duo set of melancholic Appalachia; the setting is sparser, bringing the harmonies of Marlin and Frantz — sounding more like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings here — to the forefront. There’s a clunker or three among the 18 tracks, but overall the two discs doesn’t stretch credulity. With Josh Oliver. $8. The Evening Muse. www.theeveningmuse.com.
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2011.
