SOUTHEASTERN NC — One quick probe of #LittleFriday on Google, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or other search engines and social sites will pull up multiple…
Is just a borderline”
Out of the mist and carried straight through to the next track laced with Borderlines. It must have been a challenge to rise up to Joni’s pure passion poured onto a page. Every word, every lyric is so luscious with devout meaning. It leaps off the grooves of the vinyl from John Mailander and the Forecast. The tender violin chugs away from the battle onto the sunset of peaceful obscurity. But It Did Happen. The 3rd track is like the conductor tapping the music stand. The work is in process. On air. Keep time. Speed up. Do more. Growth for the sake of growth is cancer’s motive. This is growth for the sake of growing, blooming, fulfillment. The music rises and falls, builds and destroys, and almost completes the circle until it devolves into madness. No one is built for this box. Percussion is the prescription for presumption. It’s broken with passion, fashion, redemption, and asymmetry. Anarchy protesting the plastic genetically modified, not meant for
John Mailanderâs Forecast Lights Up The 5 Spot The genre-bending collective played Tweet
Watching
John Mailanderâs Forecast live is a bit like trying to watch gravity. You know thereâs a force holding it all together, even if you canât see it, even when the jazz- and bluegrass-inspired collective teeters on the edge of spinning out of orbit. Those spacey improvisations took center stage during the bandâs album release stream Thursday. Mailander and his group returned to their frequent hangout
The 5 Spot for their first live show since the pandemic began, to celebrate the release of
In an interview with the
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Watching John Mailanderâs Forecast live is a bit like trying to watch gravity. You know thereâs a centripetal force holding it all together, even if you canât see it, and even when the jazz- and bluegrass-inspired collective spins out of orbit. Those spacey improvisations took center stage at the bandâs May 6 album release stream. Mailanderâs group returned to the Five Spot, their first live show since the pandemic began, to celebrate the release of
Look Closer, a six-track EP and Mailanderâs third full-length solo album. Mailander has previously said he feels most grounded in the bluegrass tradition, constituting the building blocks of his storied professional career as a fiddle player. Heâs toured and done studio sessions with Nashville icons like Molly Tuttle and he played on Billy Stringsâ Grammy-winning album
L
ook Closer, the new EP from John Mailanderâs Forecast, feels a bit like a microcosm of our pandemic experiences. Before lockdown, the stellar fiddler and his band were all set for a residency, but COVID-19 forced them to put the run of shows on hold. As quarantine continued, the group set up together in one room for masked and socially distanced recording sessions. Thursday, the band makes a return to its frequent haunt, Five Points bar and venue The 5 Spot, for a streaming virtual release show. As the pandemic stretches into a late stage where exhaustion, caution and hope mingle, most everyone is looking for some kind of solid ground on which to build their new version of normal. The Forecastâs bittersweet and genre-bending combo of jazz, bluegrass and roots music might be the perfect soundtrack.