On ‘Tides of a Teardrop,’ Mandolin Orange is Much More than Sum of its Influences

I’m a tad obsessed with Samin Nosrat’s cooking theory book Salt Fat Acid Heat.

I consider myself a decent cook, but Nosrat has exploded my understanding of even kitchen basics. Her prose is straightforward and comprehensive, and she regularly gets into the chemistry of what’s happening in your oven or skillet. “Classic puff pastry, when turned six times, will have precisely 730 layers of dough separated by 729 layers of butter!” Nosrat writes. “Upon entering a hot oven, each one of those distinct layers of butter will turn to steam, creating 730 layers of flakes.”

So much that happens in the kitchen is synthesis. And so much that happens in a Mandolin Orange record is synthesis as well. Like a good pastry, the North Carolina duo’s songs are instantly comforting and familiar. Yet when you stop to think about the ingredients of either, you appreciate the brilliant chemistry responsible for these treats.

The ingredients of Mandolin Orange’s sixth LP, Tides of a Teardrop, are folk-rock, singer-songwriter, and Americana. There’s a sprinkle of the blues on “When She’s Feeling Blue” and a dash of Eno-esque ambience on “Time We Made Time.” And if we’re going to hyper-extend the pastry metaphor (why not? We’ve come this far), then classic country music is the butter.

“I’m so tired of driving down the same old street / where the same old empty house greets me when I get home,” Andrew Marlin sings on “Lonely All the Time” as Emily Frantz hits a June Carter Cash harmony. “And I’m so tired of waking up to old cold coffee I made yesterday.” From its rhyme scheme to its gentle shuffle, from its melody to its concise, emotionally broken hook, “Lonely All the Time” evokes Hank and Loretta both.

This year marks a decade since Marlin and Frantz formed the duo, and that time has been marked by both an expansion and a fine-tuning of the Mandolin Orange sound. To the former, the Frantz-led “Into the Sun” nods to Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend.” To the latter, opener “Golden Embers” is a direct descendant of the songs on 2013’s comparatively sparse This Side of Jordan.

“Mother Deer” is also classic Mandolin Orange, but in a more heartbreaking way. Marlin’s mother died when he was 18, and this wordplay-loving songwriter sings “somewhere in a field of clover / she waits for me” with a childlike sense of hope. In “Suspended in Heaven,” he approaches the loss with the resilient directness of a Carter Family tune.

When food is made well, it transcends its individual ingredients, satisfying our palate and fueling us. When music is made well, it sidesteps the clumsiness of speech and communicates in the language of emotions. Ten years and six albums in, and Mandolin Orange knows its way around that esteemed kitchen.