Review: Mipso at The Orange Peel
“There’s so much to do up here, it’s crazy!” exclaimed Libby Rodenbough, about halfway through Mipso’s Sept. 22 set at The Orange Peel. But the fiddler for the Chapel Hill-based Americana group wasn’t talking about busy scales or demanding vocal parts — along with the rest of her bandmates, she had been frantically plugging and unplugging instruments, adjusting keyboard settings and twiddling with pedalboards as the crowd looked on.
Although the members of Mipso have been playing together for over a decade, the kind of live production that so vexed Rodenbough is a relatively recent demand on their musicianship. The band is touring in support of Book of Fools, released in August; the album’s heavy use of synthesizers and rock guitars led Axios Raleigh to quip that, like Bob Dylan in 1965, “Mipso goes electric.”
Those tools certainly expand the band’s sonic palette, with moody organ and cosmic guitar reverb coloring tracks like “The Numbers.” Yet, at least during its Asheville performance, the technical aspects of making the new music seemed to give Mipso some serious growing pains.
The show’s momentum felt jerky in many places, with too much dead air between songs as the band tweaked its sound. And the basic physical logistics of the setup, with each member needing space for a battle station of instruments and effects, diffused the energy of the musicians.
Although Mipso is touring as a five-piece ensemble, adding a drummer to its original lineup, its impact generally didn’t match its presence on stage. That continued to be the case even when it expanded to a septet, bringing on opening act Viv & Riley to contribute extra vocals and violin work.
(I do want to give kudos to the Durham-based indie roots duo for a fine warmup set. Riley Calcagno is a clever songwriter and fluid fiddler, while Vivian Leva’s vocals brought echoes of Kacey Musgraves in their combination of warmth and melancholy. I particularly enjoyed “Is It All Over,” a darkly jaunty lament for an imagined future Earth and colonized Mars.)
Things greatly improved when Mipso returned to its roots, concentrating its core members with acoustic instruments at a vintage microphone for a set within the set. Rodenbough, guitarist Joseph Terrell, mandolinist Jacob Sharp, and bassist Wood Robinson have undeniable chemistry and wonderful vocal harmony in that crowd-around-the-mic setting.
The Asheville crowd gave the band the quiet its members needed to make that stripped-down performance work, even in the rather large and fully packed room. It was a classic case of less is more, and I was reminded of a similar move by fellow folksy explorers Punch Brothers at another Orange Peel show I had attended years before.
Terrell seemed to recognize the magic his bandmates had regained as he called an audible to keep Mipso in the small-band format for a couple of extra songs. The audience was absolutely hooked as the group launched into “Louise,” a track from its 2013 debut Dark Holler Pop, and all but demanded a singalong to an extra chorus. And the night ended in much the same way, with an intimate cover of the bluegrass standard “Drink Up and Go Home.”
(Photo by Calli Westra)
