Lonesome Highway (Ireland)
June 2007
Stephen Rapid

Farmer Jason Rockin’ In The Forest, Laughing Outlaw

Farmer Jason, Jason Ringenberg’s twin-brother, has released his second album for kids (of all ages).The last album was A Day At The Farm. This time he spends some time in the forest and takes time to point out all the animals that live there. Giving them each a special character with appropriate musical backing. So naturally Punk Rock Skunk is given a raucous rockin’ punky workout. Ode To A Toad has an almost eastern tone thanks to Fats Kaplin using an Oud as part of the backing, and so on. This time out Jason and producer (and multi-tasking player) George Bradfute have upped the ante, the sound throughout is a very big part of why the album works on so many levels. The music is never simplified for a perceived junior market. It never talks down to its supposed audience. One of the reasons, once you get past the introductions, why these songs make sense. The spoken introductions are perhaps the part that a more adult audience will tire of on repeated listening and maybe each introduction could have been a track itself and could be then skipped on repeated listening. But that may miss the point and Jason’s enthusiastic instructional passages are spot on for his overall intention to engage children as they immerse themselves in the forest walk. One of the oddest moments is the duet with Todd Snider who sound slightly bewildered on the intro to He’s A Moose On The Loose. It’s great fun with some interesting guest vocal back-up. It would be entirely feasible for Jason to release this same album with exactly the same musical tracks and to redo the lyrics to suit an adult audience. It is that good. Fair play then to Farmer Jason for giving the young and young-at-heart something positive and potent to play and learn (in many ways) from. This is Jason’s first release on interesting Australia/UK label Laughing Outlaw which means it should be freely available in better record stores. www.farmerjason.com