Sparkwood Bandits, the alt-country duo of Anna Ehl and Josh Loar, has just released their debut album Two-Step Tempest, via indie label Electric Lights Music.

Sparkwood Bandits are telling stories of the audacious and the forlorn, the joyful and the fallen, to a rollicking music heavy on backbeat and soul.  With a wide musical palette drawing on American roots in country, blues, rock, and folk, the Bandits’ debut record is an exhibition of the band’s wry, world-weary narratives.    

Formed in 2011, Sparkwood Bandits are based out of Michigan’s untamed Upper Peninsula, where they recorded Two-Step Tempest in an attic studio on an island in Lake Superior.  They are a duo in studio, with a flexible lineup when they perform live.