The Two Tracks: Tuneful Melodies and Boogie Too

Remember quadraphonic sound? If you're too young for the word to strike a chord with you, it's just as well.

Quadraphonic was a breakthrough on the premise that if stereo sounded great, then four tracks of music would sound even better: two speakers at the left and right, plus two more in front and back. But the craze didn't last long, brought down by technical glitches and lukewarm consumer interest, which finally convinced quad's producers that mankind has two ears for a reason.

All of which is to preface the fact that a Sheridan-based band named The Two Tracks gets plenty of sweet-sounding music out of traditional stereo, thank you. It's a young band, and they can pump up the beat, too. Their Facebook page invites attendees to "come on out and do some dancing!"

What's more, they're touring to promote their self-titled debut album (on both CD and vinyl), and will be on the road a lot through this fall. Guitarist and vocalist Julie Szewc and drummer Fred Serna founded the band about two years ago, blending a mixture of Bluegrass and folk, but since then they've added David Huebner on cello and guitar. More recently, the group has been making music with touring bassist Russell Smith who'll accompany them on several live shows.

Bringing in two new members has been exciting for Szewc, allowing the group to expand their repertoire more toward Americana, she tells the Wyoming Tribune. "We're super-excited about the Americana sound," she says. "Fred and I have been kind of looking for it in other groups we've been in. It mixes it up a little bit. We can do a lot of different things now."

Szewc wrote 10 of the album's 11 songs. One of them, "Birds Eye View" manages to be both up-tempo and deeply introspective. "Little birdie, why do we come so near? / You've got all the world to fly in / But you choose to be right here / Little birdie, can you teach me how to fly?..."

Another song with the title "Wild Wyoming" contains the lines, "In the early afternoon / Show me the feeling / Of a wild Wyoming evening..."

"We've talked about getting in the studio for years and finally did it," Szewc tells the Tribune. "I'm really happy the way it turned out. We took our time to refine our music and to pick the songs for this particular album. The best moment for me so far was getting a thousand CDs in the mail and finally getting to hear them."