Two Man Ting
Album: Legacy
Label: 2BM
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.twomanting.co.uk

TwoManTing's Afro-roots angle is tailor made for open air musical gatherings as master drummer Jah-Man Aggrey and guitar virtuoso Jon Lewis, who met while playing with world music collective Le Cod Afrique, plough their own furrow.

And there's something undeniably infectious about their cross-continental fertilisation of funk, reggae, soca and palm wine grooves. The covers of Coxsone Dodd's Armagideon Time and SE Rogie's African Gospel set the tone perfectly, while their take on Sonny Rollins' St Thomas stretches the mix into unexpectedly fruitful territory with its thoughtful lyrics and gentle guitar figures. Of their own material, Le Go We Ba and Duvet Song are the stand outs, although with Aggrey's smiley djembe percussion and gentle vocals with lyrics sung largely in his native tongue from Sierra Leone adding roll and bounce to Lewis' looped guitar excursions, this is a sound best considered in its entirety rather than constituent parts.

And if the time, the place and the mood are right then it's hard to imagine TwoManTing upsetting a single thing.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk