ALBUM REVIEW: On His Latest Album, John Mailander Wants to ‘Let The World In’ On His Creative Process

John Mailander’s latest album Let The World In is the third in a trilogy that began with Forecast, his 2019 solo project. Mailander was so taken with the dynamics between the musicians on that solo album that he wanted to follow up with a band album. Comprising Mailander’s Forecast band are Ethan Jodziewicz on bass; Chris Lippincott on steel guitar, keys, and electronics; Mark Raudabaugh on percussion; Jake Stargel on acoustic guitar; and David Williford on sax and clarinet.

Multi-instrumentalist Mailander had released a progressive bluegrass album in 2014 but wanted to explore other sounds. The musicians gelled as a live band and played together locally until the 2020 lockdown. For the second Forecast album Look Closer, a collaborative project recorded in isolation during the pandemic, Mailander says he wrote with the instrumentation fully formed. When the world reopened, John Mailander’s Forecast started playing monthly at Dee’s in Madison, TN, finding their footing as a band and working out their new repertoire.

As the third album in the sequence, Let The World In connects the threads of the story. This new album is best heard as a unified listening experience, and as the liner notes suggest, it should be played loud. “Road,” the only single released in advance, runs more than nine minutes. The only track on the album not composed by Mailander and the only song with lyrics, “Road” nonetheless serves as an ideal introduction to Forecast as a live band.

A creative blend of genres, combining woodwind instruments with pedal steel or blending jazz and Americana sounds, the album bears witness to the variety of music influencing Mailander outside his bluegrass background— Bill Frissell, Pat Matheny Group, and the Brian Blade Fellowship.

The album opens with a brief countdown to the title track featuring Mailander on fiddle, with a complementary palette of instrumental backup, including sax, Wurlitzer, and even glockenspiel. Woven into the melody is a collage of sound contributed by friends credited on the album—snippets of conversation and traffic sounds before the track quietens again to simple organ notes punctuated by bird song before the full band brings the song to its conclusion.

“We definitely leaned into the noisier elements,” Mailander said. “It’s the first time I’ve embraced some of those darker emotions. I’ve tried before, but this time it really spilled out. We collectively leaned into it, which was cathartic and, hopefully, reflective of the world.”

The bluesier sound of “Gardener” with a unique blend of pedal steel and bass clarinet, overlaid by Mailander’s fiddle, feels suitable for a jazz club. “Chapters,” in the middle of the album, is most exemplary of the rock feel the band envisioned, highlighting Raudabaugh’s drumming with a layering of strings.

Influenced by his time playing with Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, Mailander wrote most of the songs on piano before bringing them to the band. That influence is most notable on the gentler “Heartland,” which also features Stargel on acoustic guitar and Jodziewics’s arco bass, as well as Mailander on piano.

The full tracks on the album are punctuated by brief improvisations, captured during the band’s recording sessions. They allow a glimpse of the musicians coming together as solo artists to become a unified organism, generously letting the world come in for a closer look at their creative process.

John Mailander’s Forecast’s Let The World In released Jan. 24.