Mipso is coming to the 9:30 Club on November 17th a late night performance of magical Americana music. For those that have not heard Mipso before, their  music is a beautiful combination of traditional string based music with close harmony and a variety of modern influences. 

The band formed in 2012 as an excuse to play music between classes in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Joseph Terrell came from a family of banjo-playing uncles and a guitarist grandma, and he’d gotten curious again about the string band music he’d heard as a kid. Jacob Sharp was raised on equal parts Doc Watson and Avett Brothers in the mountains of North Carolina and he was hunting for a chance to sing some harmonies. Wood Robinson added a Charlie Haden-esque interest in bridging jazz and grass sensibilities on the double bass, and Libby Rodenbough soon joined on fiddle, unsatisfied by her classical violin training but drawn like a moth toward the glow of old, weird Americana.

Post-pandemic Mipso is starting fresh again with their sixth album, Book of Fools, which was released on August 25th, 2023.  The songs might be their best yet: “Carolina Rolling By” shows Terrell at his most relaxed and confident while the band turns a story of a pill-popping truck driver into a meditative cosmic country-tinged head bopper. “The Numbers” flirts with 60s surf rock while Rodenbough winks and wags a finger at our market-obsessed culture, and “Broken Heart/Open Heart” features Sharp at his most heart-wrenching and earnest. Other standouts “East” and “Radio Hell” will infect you with earworms made of guitar riffs, Robinson’s pretzel-twisted upright bass lines, and saturated “ooohs” drifting in as if on AM radio waves.

Rock, country, indie-Americana: genre descriptors and labels may be applied to Mispo's latest album but they miss the point, which is that these four people and only these four people could’ve made this album. Only a decade in the van could’ve made this album.

Mipso is supported by Palmyra, hailing from from the nearby Shenandoah Valley.   We are looking forward to seeing this band perform well into the night in DC on Friday, November 17th with their beatufiul harmonies and modern take on Americana music.

(Cover Image Photo Credit: Calli Westra)

To hear Book of Fools on all streaming platforms, please follow this link.

Venue Review:  Learn More About the 9:30 Club, parking, food recommendations, and more.

To learn more about Mipso, please see the following web resources:

• Webpage
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• TIDAL
• Spotify
• TikTok