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Ease Into The Week With Mandolin Orange's Ode To Slowing Down

Mandolin Orange's new album, Tides of a Teardrop, comes out Feb. 1.
Kendall Bailey Atwater
/
Courtesy of the artist
Mandolin Orange's new album, Tides of a Teardrop, comes out Feb. 1.

If last week felt a little more... exhausting than usual, you're not alone. And if you're already finding yourself in need of a palliative before lunchtime on a Monday, well, you've come to the right place.

Mandolin Orange is a slow-burning, steadily rising folk duo from North Carolina. Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz sing warm, wise songs about getting by in the world — and, over the course of five albums, they've mastered a largely acoustic sound that exudes gentle elegance. Now, the pair is announcing a sixth record: Tides of a Teardrop, out Feb. 1. On its string-swept lead single, "Time We Made Time," Marlin sings about the importance of slowing down, cooling off and drawing loved ones close.

"I was toying with the idea of repressed emotion as a river that keeps swelling and swelling and eventually either running itself out or carrying you with it," Marlin writes via email. "It can be very satisfying to give into the rage and destructive power of it, and I think this recording captures that feeling very well."


Tides of a Teardrop comes out Feb. 1 via Yep Roc.

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)