When Jon and Roy began working on their new album, an album that would follow up their highly successful international debut ‘Another Noon’, there were bound to be questions as to what direction to go in.

‘Another Noon’ is an album that surprised the band with how far its music traveled. After all, hailing from Vancouver Island, off the west coast of Canada and having never toured abroad, suddenly the band found themselves part of a ‘new folk’ movement, a style growing out of North America and beyond.  Soon after its release, songs from ‘Another Noon’ found their way into the scores of many movies and TV shows. Volkswagen called to use a song in a commercial. Their music appeared on charts and radio internationally. They found themselves playing live all over Canada, performing at major festivals, on tour in the UK and doing shows and tours with Xavier Rudd, The Cat Empire and Buck 65.  Suddenly a band that had focused more on its rehearsal space and local fan base now began a more frenetic pace as it addressed a growing audience worldwide.

Vancouver Island, while still maintaining an urban connection and a burgeoning artistic community, is also a destination for travelers, wanderers and surfers, among others.  It is a landscape that contains old growth rain forests, snowy peaks, a rugged coastline and a population that finds itself tempered by its surroundings. Coming back home to record, to the roots of where they began playing, was the start of a long and creative process. Having developed from its origins as the duo of Jon Middleton (Guitar/Vocals) and Roy Vizer (Drums/Percussion) into a four-piece band, with the addition of long time accompanist Dougal Bain Maclean on Violin/Mandolin and friend Ryan Tonelli on bass, the band sought a new approach in their songwriting.  This they found immediately with the new sounds and rhythms that came from writing as a bigger band.

And so Jon and Roy began doing what they do best, which is to focus on making music that comes naturally. Of course, many people around them asked questions like:

Is there a hit?
Would that song be better if it had a bridge? 
Should they make a lo-fi album?
Should they make a hi-fi album?

These were legitimate questions, being that many people were now involved in the chain that brought their music to audience ears: the managers, producers, agents, publishers, media, promoters, distributors and more in the complex world of the music business.  But with too many voices and too much thinking about music, does it come out the way it was intended to?  In reality the band could only write music that felt right and in the end they found their musical voice by locking themselves in the small and soundproof rooms involved in the recording process, by focusing on what came intuitively to them and by letting everything unfold as it should.

And so Jon and Roy bring you ‘Homes’, an album which took eight months to finish, from its start in a small basement rehearsal space, along its path as it became the greater sum of its parts, and into its fruition through the analog and digital ways of modern recording. This is a collection of fourteen meticulously crafted songs in the continuing vein of Jon and Roy, an album that ventures into new territory as the band evolves and grows. Look for this album as it finds its way into  stores and airwaves and a new chapter in the story of Jon and Roy will begin. Enjoy.