‘When We’re Free’ the debut album from James / Cook offers a refreshing listen with its expansive sound yet careful reverence to the pioneering folk records of the 1960s. Throughout this album James’ acoustic guitar playing complements Cooks’ vocal melodies with a simplistic yet melancholic charm. Soft fingerpicking patterns juxtapose climatic moments of distressed and distorted cello, which are held together by a tight rhythm section performed and recorded by James also. Cooks’ intimate lyrics about her wanderlust and feelings of unrequited love take us on a journey; her voice refracting and slowing at certain moments as she finds shelter within the sonic headlands carved by James and the other session musicians. The ambiguity of the albums title ‘When We're Free’ separates us from the notion of time. This becomes a perfect fit for these thirteen songs which were originally recorded as just guitar and voice in 2011 until being expanded into their envisioned full-band form this year. Whilst we are given no hint as to where this freedom lies or when it will realised, what is clear is that James and Cook together have created a perfect album resembling closeness and hope. The intimacy contained in these songs can easily be translated into each of our lives; however the most defining feature of this album is the bridge these songs have created in reconnecting the estranged songwriters after three years of no contact from opposite sides of the world.Sean Crookes – October 2014