Mipso Trio brings first full-length record to Cat's Cradle -

Preparing for a concert later that day, boxes full of their debut album newly arrived and smiles plastered to their faces, it was hard to miss the excitement enveloping Mipso Trio when sitting down to talk Friday afternoon.

The buzz was warranted — the student musicians have a lot to be excited about. Having sold out Cat’s Cradle at their first headlining performance there in January, they’ll take that venue’s renowned stage again Saturday to celebrate the release of their debut album, Long, Long Gone.

“I can’t tell you how lucky we still feel to be able to play that place again,” said Joseph Terrell, guitarist, with a humble sense of wonder in his tone.

“It’s no less of an honor and a total privilege.”

Talking about the release of the album, the group, which includes Terrell, Jacob Sharp on mandolin and Wood Robinson on bass, was just as vivacious. Laughing and talking over each other, the three were still wrapping their heads around the album as a finished product.

“Listening to this, when I remove myself from it personally, I think ‘Oh, I really like this CD,’ and it’s not because it’s our music, it’s because I love what we’re doing,” said Sharp.

“It feels like having a baby, I can’t believe that I’m holding this thing, really,” chimed in Terrell, “knowing the months and hours and years of writing songs and learning to play together that contributed to making this album.”

The three have been hard at work — touring together for over a year now, maturing as artists and developing their musical identity as a group. Having gained experience as songwriters and performers, the new album captures the trio at a coming of age.

“It sounds funny, but it took us a while to sound like us,” said Terrell. “I’m proud of having this album that’s really a good representation of the way we sound, the way we’ve come to sound, the way we’ve grown.”

Mipso Trio’s first project, a self-titled EP released last year, was recorded just over a month after the band first played together.

“We were super proud of the EP that we made, but we recorded it in a closet, we begged our friends to help us — it was very much like a pieced together with Scotch tape kind of project,” said Terrell.

“This feels like graduation a little bit. It feels like we’re a real band now.”

That new level of professionalism has been enabled, in part, by their label Robust Records, which introduced the band to Electromagnetic Radiation Recorders in Winston-Salem to have Long, Long Gone professionally recorded.

The recording studio experience allowed the musicians to flesh out their sound in a way not previously possible.

“In the studio, you have a lot of tools at your disposal. We took advantage of being able to create some new sounds that we’ve envisioned but obviously can’t replicate just as a trio,” said Sharp. “Having some guests and getting some different sounds allowed these songs to be at their fullest potential.”

To expand its instrumentation on the new album, the trio incorporated piano, pedal-steel, drums and banjo to round out its guitar, mandolin and upright-bass formula. Tracks fluctuate from full-bodied bluegrass textures to simple guitar strums and vocal harmonies.

While the group has been maturing and picking up momentum over the past year, the album release isn’t expected to change its status as a student band.

“We’re really aware that we’re a UNC-based band … that’s not going to change,” said Terrell.

“We’re very much based and rooted in that community — it’s so nice to be flourishing there,” said Sharp, finishing the other’s thought, as the trio often did.

All three of Mipso Trio’s members are juniors whose academic schedules are intensifying even as the band becomes more successful, turning music and education into a balancing act.

The three plan to part ways and pursue other interests this summer, until school resumes in the fall. Robinson will be in Alaska taking glacial measurements, Terrell will be studying guitar in Brooklyn and Sharp will be doing research for his thesis in Japan.

“Joseph likes to say that we’re full-time musicians part of the time,” mentioned Sharp, going on to quip, “That’s especially true during the summer when we’re all long, long gone.”

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