THE JOURNEY BY DOUBLE TIGER
After dropping his Easy Star Records debut album Sharp & Ready to critical acclaim, Double Tiger (Jay Spaker) is back with The Journey, which is his most diverse and personal collection to date. The album features an all-star lineup of artists including Slightly Stoopid, The Movement, Ranking Joe, Elliot Martin (John Brown’s Body), Suckarie (New Kingston), and Karim Israel (Arise Roots)
It has been a tumultuous couple of years for Spaker, and the music on The Journey reflects this. He began writing and recording the record when John Brown’s Body (for which he was guitarist/vocalist) was winding down and going on hiatus. He had recently moved to Los Angeles after a lifetime of living in New York (both upstate and in the city). The sound of the tunes manage to capture this balance between his East coast roots and the West coast sound he was suddenly immersed in, with a good portion of the album heavily influenced by California life, the ocean, mountains, and the vibrant left coast culture. As Spaker puts it, “this album is a blend of the many styles of reggae that inspire me. The previous one was straight rub a dub focused. When I got to L.A., I was in a more open place and started exploring other aspects I had always loved – like lovers rock, rockers – but never really messed with in my own writing.”.
