In spring 2016, the string band Mipso found themselves looking at a musical embarrassment of riches. The group was ready to begin recording then and there, only to discover that the person they wanted to produce their next album, Todd Sickafoose, wouldn’t be available until January 2017.
But instead of biding their time, Mipso decided they had another option.
“We realized we had more than an album’s worth of material already,” says violinist/singer Libby Rodenbough. “This was in mid 2016. So we decided we would just make an album in the Triangle (the nickname for Mipso’s North Carolina home base, anchored by Raleigh/Durham, Chapel Hill and Greensboro/Winston-Salem) with some of the people we knew well there. Then we would keep the January session (with Sickafoose) on the books.”
The two albums ended up being released almost exactly one year apart from each other. The one recorded in summer 2016, Coming Down The Mountain, was released in April 2017, while the Sickafoose-produced Edges Run was released in April of last year.
In retrospect, Rodenbough and Mipso guitarist/singer Joseph Terrell agree that doing two albums in such a short span of time may not have been the best idea.
“There were definitely some times during that period where we felt like we had bitten off more than we could chew,” Terrell says. “Looking back, it’s interesting to hold these two things true in my head: One is that I’m really proud of both of these records; I think they both feel like us. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend this process of making records to anybody because it was stressful as hell.”
“It’s a lot to make two albums in something like six months,” Rodenbough adds. “It was a lot for us financially and it was a lot for us interpersonally and emotionally.”
Terrell says it was strange to make Edges Run without having any sense of how audiences would respond to Coming Down The Mountain or how fans viewed those songs in comparison to the material from Mipso’s three earlier albums, Long, Long Gone (2012), Dark Holler Pop (2013) and Old Time Reverie (2015).
But the lack of fan feedback also helped make the band feel free to explore different ideas in recording the songs for Edges Run. That was part of the idea behind working with a new producer in Sickafoose, who is well known as Ani DiFranco’s musical director and collaborator.
Some of the songs Mipso brought to the Edges Run sessions weren’t finished — band members Terrell, Rodenbough, Jacob Sharp (mandolin, vocals) and Wood Robinson (bass, vocals) weren’t sure how to move forward with the tunes and hoped Sickafoose would be able to help.
“We wanted Todd (to) help us make sense of them a little bit,” Rodenbough says of the unfinished songs. “There was a lot of taking songs apart and rearranging them and messing with the structures of the songs or the feel, and there was a little more of an experimental approach to production.”
The music on both Coming Down The Mountain and Edges Run continues to expand the breadth of Mipso’s sound. Long, Long Gone and Dark Holler Pop hued fairly closely to the group’s Bluegrass roots, but the band explored broader influences on Old Time Reverie. With Coming Down The Mountain, though there was still plenty of Bluegrass woven into the material, several songs pushed beyond usual string-band boundaries, like the eerie organ-laced ballad “Water Runs Red,” the Laurel Canyon-ish Country Pop of “Monterey County” and the tender and spare ballad “Cry Like Somebody.”
With Edges Run, though, Mipso has reached a place where the music can’t really be assigned to any genre, Bluegrass or otherwise. There’s Country, Americana, Bluegrass and ambient Pop in the ballads “Didn’t Know Love” and “Take Your Records Home.” The sturdy “Moonlight” and the peppy “Servant To It” parcel out Pop/Rock and Country in pretty equal amounts. Then there’s “Oceans,” a gentle tune with a lovely winsome vocal that is as Pop as anything Mipso has recorded, and “Sleep, Little Dreamer,” a rustic Country/Bluegrass lullaby.
There’s also a darker tone to Edges Run than on the more upbeat Coming Down The Mountain. This makes sense considering the latter album was recorded in the summertime in North Carolina and Mipso enjoyed the camaraderie and familiarity of having musician friends around to contribute to the tracks.
Rodenbough feels the backdrop for the recording of Edges Run may have helped bring out the darker vibe in Mipso’s music. Not only was the group dealing with the strain of embarking on a second album, but they had also seen some relationships end and some friends and family members had died. Plus, the session happened in the middle of winter when the weather outside of Sickafoose’s Oregon studio was rather depressing.
“It’s so hard to know if it’s your landscape that is affecting your mood or if it’s your mood that’s making you notice the landscape,” Rodenbough says. “But I think it was a dark-feeling time for all of us and it was tough because you couldn’t go outside much. You’re always cooped up in the studio during recording anyway, and it can feel a little bit claustrophobic. But it was just more so (this time) because it was nasty outside most of the time. And we were all staying in a little tiny Airbnb together, and there was just not a lot of personal space. And we were all to some extent wondering if we were doing the right thing and if we should be making an album so soon.”
The group’s mood is anything but dark now. Before beginning touring last year, Mipso had a couple of months off, which helped recharge the batteries after what had been a long stretch of writing, recording and touring. The four musicians also enjoyed the challenges they encountered figuring out how to translate some songs from Edges Run to the live stage.
“We actually have had a drummer on the road with us,” Rodenbough says. “We had drums on (Coming Down The Mountain), although they were a lot more straightforward than the drums on this one. So percussion will be probably a little more central to the sound of some of these (newer) songs.”
Rodenbough says recreating some of the organ and piano sounds from the recordings presented some onstage logistical puzzles the musicians have enjoyed solving.
“They’re all simple parts and we’re all capable enough players on a keyboard that we can probably all cover the parts, but it’s a matter of figuring out where we need the other instruments we play and where somebody can hop on a keyboard for a little while,” she says. “I like that kind of challenge because I think that the best live shows are when the performers are a little bit unsure of themselves, just enough that you have that sense it’s possible that things could fall off the rails. So I think it’s better if you can find ways to naturally confuse yourself a little bit for the live show. That’s a good thing.”
Mipso plays Friday, Feb. 22 at Woodward Theater with Young Heirlooms. Tickets/more show info: woodwardtheater.com.
This article appears in Feb 13-20, 2019.
