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blackmutt
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blackmutt The way Emily's voice so effortlessly cuts through the warmth of the strings and the subtle electric guitar never fails to make my spine tingle. The song rolls and flows like a river - gracefully and with gathering intensity, then settling back down. Listen to this track on vinyl and you'll melt every time. Favorite track: Upside Down.
Mark DiTusa
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Mark DiTusa The warmth and musicianship that comes through on this album makes it worth the listen. Even with a new name, Watchhouse keeps their songwriting prowess. Favorite track: Belly of the Beast.
Krisstoffur Brandon
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Krisstoffur Brandon As artists, musicians, and writers, they are obviously daring in their approach to musical entertainment, rather than the comfort of a single genre. Watchhouse are dauntless in their artistic exploration for musical brilliance. This album is definitely a magical child of this visionary intimacy. The music is evocative, striking and moving in its spirit and presentation. I highly recommend this to anyone's musical collection for the shear enjoyment and bliss.
hannes_59
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hannes_59 So much beauty !
Hannes
Randall Renegar
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Randall Renegar I love this new work and the chance to share the joy that Andrew and Emily have in their "New Star."
Eric Chen
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Eric Chen This is great! looking forward to all that is to come!
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9.99 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Pre-order of the new Watchhouse album.

    LP is 140 gram in gatefold packaging with a printed insert. The LP is pressed local to North Carolina at Citizen Vinyl and is expected to ship to arrive on, or around, street date.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Watchhouse via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $22 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Pre-order for Watchhouse on CD.
    This will be printed in an eco-wallet and will include an 8 page booklet.
    Pre-orders will ship to arrive on, or around, street date.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Watchhouse via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Watchhouse - LP - white, blue & black swirl variant
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Pre-order for a limited white, blue & black swirl variant of the new album. This version of the LP is available only through Bandcamp or the Watchhouse webstore and is limited to only 500 copies.

    LP is 140 gram in gatefold packaging with a printed insert. The record is pressed local to North Carolina at Citizen Vinyl and will ship to arrive on, or around, the August 13 street date.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Watchhouse via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
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 05:56
Better Way 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.
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 03:05
New Star 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 04:08
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.
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 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 05:05
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

By the time 2019 came to its fitful end, Andrew Marlin knew he was tired of touring. He was grateful, of course, for the ascendancy of Mandolin Orange, the duo he’d cofounded in North Carolina with fiddler Emily Frantz exactly a decade earlier. With time, they had become new
flagbearers of the contemporary folk world, sweetly singing soft songs about the hardest parts of our lives, both as people and as a people. Their rise—particularly crowds that grew first to fill small dives, then the Ryman, then amphitheaters the size of Red Rocks humbled Emily and Andrew, who became parents to Ruby late in 2018. They’d made a life of this.

Still, every night, Andrew especially was paid to relive a lifetime of grievances and griefs onstage. After 2019’s Tides of a Teardrop, a tender accounting of his mother’s early death, the process became evermore arduous, even exhausting. What’s more, those tunes—and the band’s
entire catalogue, really—conflicted with the name Mandolin Orange, an early-20s holdover that never quite comported with the music they made. Nightly soundchecks, at least, provided temporary relief, as the band worked through a batch of guarded but hopeful songs written just
after Ruby’s birth. They offered a new way to think about an established act.

Those tunes are now Watchhouse, which would have been Mandolin Orange’s sixth album but is instead their first also under the name Watchhouse, a moniker inspired by Marlin’s place of childhood solace. The name, like the new record itself, represents their reinvention as a band at the regenerative edges of subtly experimental folk-rock. Challenging as they are charming, and an inspired search for personal and political goodness, these nine songs offer welcome lessons about what any of us might become when the night begins to break.

“We’re different people than when we started this band,” Marlin says, reflecting on all these shifts. “We’re setting new intentions, taking control of this thing again.”

credits

released August 13, 2021

Produced by Josh Kaufman and Andrew Marlin
Engineered, Mixed and Mastered by D. James Goodwin
Assistant/Location Scout - Saman Khoujinian

All songs written by Andrew Marlin, Tiptoe Tiger Publishing (BMI)
C&P 2021 Tiptoe Tiger Music

Art and packaging by Ishaq Fahim
Photo by Shervin Lainez
Creative Direction by Martin Anderson

“Wondrous Love”

Andrew Marlin - Singing, High String Electric Guitar, Electric Guitar
Emily Frantz - Fiddle, Singing
Josh Oliver - Acoustic Guitar
Clint Mullican - Upright Bass
Joe Westerlund- Drums, Percussion

“Better Way”

Andrew Marlin- Singing, Mandolin, Nylon String Guitar
Emily Frantz - Fiddle, Singing
Josh Oliver - Acoustic Guitar, 12 String Guitar, Electric Guitar
Clint Mullican - Upright Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Percussion
Josh Kaufman - Organ, Percussion, Electric Guitar

“Belly of the Beast”

Andrew Marlin - Singing, Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar
Emily Frantz - Acoustic Guitar, Fiddle, Singing
Josh Oliver - Acoustic Guitar
Clint Mullican - Electric Bass, Arco Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Percussion
Josh Kaufman - Organ

“New Star”

Andrew Marlin - Singing, Mandolin, High String Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Emily Frantz - Acoustic Guitar, Singing
Josh Oliver - Acoustic Guitar, Singing
Clint Mullican - Electric Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Percussion
Josh Kaufman - Harmonicas

“Upside Down”

Emily Frantz - Singing, Acoustic Guitar
Andrew Marlin - Acoustic Guitar, 12 String Guitar, Singing
Josh Oliver - Electric Guitar
Clint Mullican - Electric Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Congas, Percussion

“Lonely Love Affair”

Andrew Marlin - Singing, Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar, 12 String Guitar
Emily Frantz - Fiddle, Singing
Josh Oliver - Wurlitzer Electric Piano
Clint Mullican - Electric Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Percussion
Josh Kaufman - Acoustic Guitar

“Coming Down From Green Mountain”

Andrew Marlin - Mandolin
Emily Frantz - Fiddle
Josh Oliver - Acoustic Guitar
Clint Mullican - Upright Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums
Josh Kaufman - Electric Guitar

“Beautiful Flowers”

Emily Frantz - Singing
Andrew Marlin - Acoustic Guitar, Singing
Dave Nelson - Trombones, Trumpets

“Nightbird”

Andrew Marlin - Singing, Acoustic Guitar, 12 String Guitar
Emily Frantz - Fiddle, Singing
Josh Oliver - Electric Guitar
Clint Mullican - Upright Bass
Joe Westerlund - Drums, Percussion
Josh Kaufman - Organ

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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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