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1.
Wondrous Love - Duo Version Sometimes when the sky is crystal clear and the nighttime finds herself at rest free from city lights and noise pollution I think of all the things that I love best Got no time for T.V. or the news Got no time to think of who done what It’s just me and the universe surrounding a heart so free and full of wondrous love Wondrous love, wondrous love I think of all the traveling that I’ve done I think of all the traveling I could do I could travel on and on and only travel round in circles till I’m blue This sort of thought leaves me no despair It pours me out then fully fills me up It leads my heart infinitely onward across a universe abound with wondrous love Wondrous love Someday the stars will align And everybody watching will turn to one another and be kind
2.
Better Way - Duo Version Oh why would you try to be so unkind Your laughter echoes in my head Leave it alone, leave it alone, leave it alone I’m reminded Don’t forget about the dead If I could go walking with you by my side would you be so unkind, so unkind You could do all the talking, just speak your mind Free your mind Well you found you had a voice and the world stopped to listen But you had nothing good to say Now you’re alone, digging for bones, buried in your phone for hours What a waste of a day If I could go walking with you by my side would you be so unkind, so unkind You could do all the talking, just speak your mind Free your mind I hope you find a better way I hope you find I hope you find a better way to be kinder
3.
Better Way - Duo Version Oh, the star-eyed troubadour sleeps with the eternal and wakes up in the gutter with a song to sing The magic of the evening is so fleeting and when it's gone, how we long We punish our souls for being unclean and bask in the glory of living obscenely The fringe is a friend and our friends build the memories we sacrifice for the song Oh it's maddening, running to the feast Hiding from the monsters in the belly of the beast Just give me your love, it's all I need Hide me from the monsters in the belly of the beast I'd like to call home, tell ‘em about this town A northwest gem just nestled in a mountain Greeted me early with the peaceful sounds of the wind in the evergreens I should go walking, it's not something I do But feeling this light makes me miss the blues The gutter is lonely, it's a tool I use It's the road I'm traveling Oh, it's maddening running to the feast Hiding from the monsters in the belly of the beast Just give me your love, it's all I need Hide me from the monsters in the belly of the beast Oh, it's maddening running to the feast Hiding from the monsters in the belly of the beast Just give me your love, it's all I need Hide me from the monsters in the belly of the beast Just give me your love (It's all I need) Just give me your love (It's all I need) Just give me your love (It's all I need) It's all I need
4.
New Star - Duo Version We settled in for the winter The cast in our lives, found a new star And all of our remaining hours Were bundled up tight and placed in our arms Someday we’ll be older Our eyes may cry Look what’s become of me and my former Steal away, steal away, remember At least we’re all here together Finding our way as a teacher Stumbling along a little unrested If only one lesson could reach her She’ll know our love could never be tested Someday she’ll be older Our eyes may cry Look what’s become of me and my former Steal away, steal away, remember At least we’re all here together At least we’re all here together We settled in for the winter The cast in our lives, found a new star
5.
Upside Down - Duo Version I knew right from the start You’d come along and break my heart a thousand ways and put it back together again You could’ve been anyone You came along like a setting sun on a hard day I thought would never end I’ve been haunted all my life Kept a light on day and night Just a fool’s way to see what can’t be seen I have something on my mind Was it you on the other side just trying to find your way home to me Now your footsteps echo in the hall You’ve known me all your life I swear I’ve missed you all of mine and now you’re here And I’ll always be right by your side in this and the next life I’m yours and you are mine I’m yours and you are mine I’m yours and you are mine I’m yours and you are mine Oh, look at miss blue eyes running round Oh, the sweetest sight I have found Turned the whole world upside down I knew right from the start You’d come along and break my heart a thousand ways and put it back together again
6.
Lonely Love Affair - Duo Version Lord I’ve got a stranger in my house and I can’t tell you just how it feels to see her lying there stealing all the air I’ve got It’s a lonely love affair It’s a lonely love affair Lord I’ve got a stranger in my house She’s got me on the tips of my toes While the ghosts of my loved ones surround me and stare It’s a lonely love affair It’s a lonely love affair And I’d grown to be so high strung but I’m mellowing out now that my little one is here It’s staggering Lord I’ve got a stranger in my house I finally sense the world at my door As I stand like a watchman with a weapon of care It’s a lonely love affair It’s a lonely love affair
7.
8.
Beautiful Flowers - Duo Version Beautiful flowers in the morning dew They’re nothing without you You flutter on by in a flash of color and you’re gone But we keep on rolling on In eighteen hundred and eighty five when a man by the name of Benz put three wheels together and an engine too He had no idea it could be the death of you But we keep on rolling on I like to head out and arrive real soon kind of doze off in between a little splash here, a tiny bump there I clean off the window and I see real clear again And I keep on rolling on Beautiful flowers in the morning dew They’re nothing without you You flutter on by in a flash of color and you’re gone We just keep on rolling on Well the summertime blues are burning red hot Red hotter than they’ve ever been But if the whole world screamed at the top of their lungs it wouldn’t make a sound on the moon much less the sun But we keep on rolling on Beautiful flowers in the morning dew They’re nothing without you You flutter on by in a flash of color and you’re gone We just keep on rolling on Big oil’s got the money and the money goes round Lord, we don’t know where it ends And the more I see the less I know which way we’re all gonna go from here We keep on rolling on
9.
Nightbird - Duo Version I’m standing at the door crying let me in I see her dancing there in all her wonder How her body moves, with eternal youth and her footsteps hammer on like rolling thunder While I’m stuck here in the shadows fueling the dream Another face just flashing in the night The smoke it folds around me like unenchanted wings as I listen to the nightbirds singing in their flight Oh close this great divide between my heart and mind Once she held me in my anguish Pulled me from my pain and sheltered me from life’s mysteries Somewhere beyond the darkness lies incredible light At least that’s what she once made me believe So go dive in empty spaces where magic weaves and spins Go find her there, it’s where she set me free Now I’m pulling chains from every corner of her memory Go find her there and bring her back to me Oh close this great divide Between my heart and mind Just listen to the nightbirds Listen to the nightbirds Listen to the nightbirds Listen to the nightbirds Well if I could turn my back now and lay back down with you I’d pull you in and finally get some sleep Listening to the nightbirds without wondering how they hold her in their song so casually

about

Watchhouse (Duo) - Essay by Allison Hussey

It used to be that you’d only ever see Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin as a duo. From the start, it was always them, together: standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder on an otherwise empty stage, making sleight-of-hand overdubs in the studio, dropping into the coffee shop.

The first time I saw them was in November 2009, opening for Chatham County Line at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro just a few months after they’d decided to try being a band called Mandolin Orange. They seemed scared to be there. A few months later, they were in a repurposed restaurant that had previously been home to a Rocky & Bullwinkle theme restaurant; a picket-fence backdrop had been painted black behind them. They’ve played in sticky-floored rock clubs, theaters big and small, in open fields and under the stars. They’ve played with two or three or several more friends in some of music history’s most hallowed haunts. Every scene has been its own story.

Emily and Andrew grew up separately steeped in the music that they would first approximate directly, and start to develop into new forms all their own. They convened a small town with a charming name and a big college, following a mutual affection for music (and each other), choosing a band name to match their earnest young spirits. Their very first album together was circulated in cardboard covers that had been printed with thick ink applied by hand; you could e-mail Mandolin Orange at a Gmail address listed on a printer-paper insert.

As their imaginations grew together, so, too, did their ability to intertwine their creative strengths. They moved from one quiet little room to another, and as more people kept following them there, those rooms got bigger. Even in stormy times, the songs reflected the ways that love could be a curse, a wilted clover, a comfort as light as cotton sheets. The clouds cleared, and the roots grew deeper. Old friends returned to the fold over and over again, and new ones necessarily joined the jubilations.

Along the way, the band became not just a metaphorical family, but a literal one. The world changed as they did, and with them, their songs changed, too. They looked at intolerable tragedies and weathered the aches of adult life. But they also uncovered great joy: the sort that comes from a knowing, trusting love, one that has withstood not only the usual trials of time and growing up, but also years of juggling creative ambitions with pragmatic work, crummy hotel rooms, long drives in a Honda Odyssey, and, on one occasion, bedbugs.

There was only one occasion where I had any concern about Andrew and Emily’s uphill climb, but it short-lived and circumstantial, not to mention entirely too literal. Through a series of circumstances not worth unraveling, I found myself driving a golf cart carrying Andrew, Emily, their gear, and their manager, Jimmy, from one end of a music festival to another. Our destination was a high, grassy outcrop with a fantastic view of the North Carolina foothills, and my foot lay flat on the pedal against the floor as the Little Golf Cart That Could wheezed its way up the black pavement.

I was terrified of dropping them and their gear off the steep incline, and I think they were, too. They gamely did not say so. It took some rumbling and rattling—possibly some prayer—but we got up there intact. Maybe there’s a nice metaphor in there somewhere, about how, through hanging on and believing and being steady and careful, everything will turn out okay in the end. Mostly I’m still grateful that a guitar didn’t go clattering down an asphalt incline.

A new chapter opened with Watchhouse, the present-day vehicle where songs come to life with glistens of electric guitar, light percussion, and sweeping, textured layers of strings. It sounds different, in some obvious ways—bigger, brighter, more panoramic. But its heart is the same. It will always be Emily and Andrew.

What Watchhouse (Duo) captures is a pair of people who have spent more than a decade investing in each other as individuals, as fellow musicians, as a pair of partners building a long future together. But these songs are extensions of the people who wrote them, together, and Duo is a way to hear a whole decade collapsed into less than an hour. It’s both sides, now: the eager young couple who had no idea of what they were stepping into, and the wiser, more worldly travelers they turned out to be—and every day, are still becoming.

credits

released August 12, 2022

Recorded in June 2022 at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC

Produced and performed live by Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz
Engineered and mixed by Julian Dreyer
Assistant engineer: Dowell Gandy
Mastered by Alan Silverman at Aerial Sound

All songs written by Andrew Marlin (One Riot Music (BMI) obo Tiptoe Tiger Music (BMI))

Art by Clare Byrne
Photo by Charlie Boss

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Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange) Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Watchhouse is Andrew Marlin & Emily Frantz (formerly Mandolin Orange). The self-titled new album is available now!

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