MIPSO

Chapel Hill’s Mipso employs the tools of a Southern string band — fiddle, mandolin, double bass and four-part harmonies — but don’t call them bluegrass. Though grounded in the folk tradition of Doc Watson, Mipso wanders off the down-home reservation, incorporating jazz, soul and cosmic cowboy twang into indie countrypolitan pop. Songs that can be high lonesome wistful or jaunty as a dosey-doe are shaded with a tangy dose of darkness. (Michael Walsh)