Twelve years and five studio albums down the line, Californographic singer-songwriter Maurice Tani presents something different.

During the winter of 2009-10, Tani and 77 El Deora bassist Mike Anderson began playing a series of under-the-radar shows as a duo using the pseudonym “Briggs & Stratton,” preparing material for what eventually became the band's "Hell Yeah! Turn It Down!" acoustic sets. This was a complete deconstruction and re-envisioning of much of the band's repertoire for more intimate, listener-friendly venues. They stripped the songs down to the most essential elements: lyric and melody accompanied by just acoustic guitar and bass. The idea was to use the resulting skeleton arrangements as a base to add back in the rest of the band sparingly for the HY!TID! sets. But along the way, the often expected unexpected happened. They found that the minimalist treatment gave the material a new identity and audience of it's own.

“Two Stroke” is an album of acoustic duos and trios reflecting that proces