Two a Roue
Jez Lowe & Jake Walton
Tantobie Records
2001
14 tracks

The music rolls over you, sometimes soft as the breeze but more often harder, like a mountain wind or the ocean waves. It's smooth and unrelenting music, moving ever forward. In the broader general sense, I enjoy hearing these performances. The sound is bright and full of life and the songs are sung and played by two very talented young men. Most listeners who enjoy the pop end of the folk music spectrum should enjoy the music on Two a Roue

Given that these are simple songs based in the folk tradition, this release feels over-produced. Backing the singers is a profusion of a dozen or more instruments, many of them redundant. Besides the fact that nobody can play multiple instruments on this scale without adding supplemental tracks, this release seems to have been cleaned-up far too much in production and has a very "studio" feel. This is a re-issue of a 1986 release, so it's possible that someone with digital tools at hand decided to clean up the older tracks. I would have preferred to hear a simpler, more straightforward production or even a live performance of these songs.

Of course, the minor concerns commented on above may simply reflect a personal pecadillo of mine and would not, I think, concern most listeners. This CD contains fourteen beautifully performed tracks that bear up well under close listening but also blend in well as background music for whatever you may be doing at the time.

Jez Lowe and Jake Walton's Two a Roue may be of interest to anyone who enjoys the traditional music of the British Isles, especially Northern England, Ireland and Scotland, and doesn't mind that the music is performed with a contemporary feeling.

Those who want to find out even more about Jez Lowe can look him up at JezLowe.com. If you like, you can also read my previous Sound Bytes review of Jez Lowe's release Live at the Davy Lamp, a live recording with The Bad Pennies.

You can find out more about Jake Walton at Jake Walton Music.