Look Closer, the new EP from John Mailander’s 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 Forecast’s bittersweet and genre-bending combo of jazz, bluegrass and roots music might be the perfect soundtrack.
The group came together “socially distant but musically close,” as Mailander puts it, at Soundwave Studios in July. As the group recorded the six-track collection, each musician had their own station with a divider, which allowed them to maintain eye contact and play as a unit. The live element was especially important for Mailander, who initially worried the strange circumstances would bleed through in the record’s sound. Instead he found that each player tapped into the songs in a fresh way.
“I had it in my head that it would be this stark process, reflecting the sadness and isolation we were feeling,” Mailander says of the recording, which was preceded by a lengthy email thread discussing safety measures. “But the moment we got together, it felt opposite of that — so joyful. That’s what made it to the record, more than the heaviness of the time.”
The EP is a reflection of Mailander’s storied professional career and his desire to push the boundaries of fiddle playing. He came up in the bluegrass tradition and has toured with contemporary acoustic luminaries like Molly Tuttle, Darol Anger and Billy Strings; you can hear Mailander on Strings’ Grammy-winning album Home. The San Diego-born Nashvillian also brings Music City flavor to multifaceted pianist Bruce Hornsby’s jazz- and string-band-inflected group Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers.
Despite the prominence of his name on the release, Mailander is adamant that Look Closer is a group effort. And it’s not just about his primary instrument either — indeed, fiddle isn’t even featured on the title track. Instead, Mailander plays keys on “Look Closer” and lets the other band members come in one voice at a time, with Ethan Jodziewicz on bass, Mark Raudabaugh on drums, Chris Lippincott on pedal steel and lap steel, Jake Stargel on guitar and David Williford on sax and clarinet. It’s a poignant coming together, not too different from the way loved ones and friends are beginning to gather again, slowly and just a little at a time.
Guests on the EP include vocalist Kristina Train, who sings a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Borderline.” Mailander says the pair became fast friends after meeting at a house concert; Train played at one of the last 5 Spot gigs before the venue closed to help slow the spread of COVID. Singer-songwriter Maya de Vitry, who was Mailander’s roommate in college, takes the lead on a rendition of Lucinda Williams’ “Dust” that wraps up Look Closer. Before their gigs were canceled, de Vitry was scheduled to appear with the band in May of last year.
Though the record is a product of Mailander’s talented collective, his fiddling still shines through. He uses a variety of techniques, from plucking pizzicato on opening track “Returning” to billowing bowing on “Song for John,” which is dedicated to his mentor, mandolin player John McCann. Then, in the last minutes of a breakdown on “But It Did Happen,” all the technique pulls apart in an interlude reminiscent of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with single drum hits, chicken-squawk fiddle and negative space, before the song resolves into a main riff that could have easily been pulled from a White Stripes record. Jodziewicz’s bass in the first seconds of “Look Closer” sounds like it swaggered in from the sweeping, dramatic soundtrack to Bridgerton. There’s a lot to hear — all of it enjoyable.
Look Closer is acoustic without being folksy, experimental but accessible. It feels a little like peeking your head timidly out the front door after a bad storm has blown over — something Nashvillians understand intimately. “Returning,” “But It Did Happen” and “Look Closer” were all written during quarantine, while the other three songs have been in the band’s repertoire longer. If you’ve seen the group at The 5 Spot, you’ve probably heard those songs.
It’s fitting, then, that the band returns to the venue for Thursday’s release show, their first live performance since the pandemic began. They’ll play Look Closer top to bottom. Mailander says the band is “doing their homework,” but don’t expect that what you’ll hear that night will sound just like the record.
“We explore so much,” Mailander says. “The album is a roadmap, but we’ll take the songs wherever the night takes us.”
Musicians face a slew of questions right now, about how they’ll explore their next project, when and how they’ll get back to live performances, and more. Much like the rest of us, Mailander is hopeful that live performance comes back soon in a way that feels safe, but he doesn’t have a ton of answers.
“Live music is a part of what keeps us going,” he says. “When it does come back, it’ll look different than it did before.”
