This is the kind of music that should be playing in the background when you’re getting ready to see someone you haven’t seen in a long time, then you see them, and your heart swells, and the music rises and hovers right there in that first sweet moment of reconnection. So, yeah, don’t call this music instrumental, because it’s so much more than that.

Listening to Nearer Sky, the brilliance in the simplicity, makes you wonder if Mozart didn’t reincarnate, exchanging his viola for a guitar, and his crimson pelisse for a North Face jacket.

And to think that this music comes from two regular guys – Boone Johnson and Michael Robert Swanson – who met up on Spencer Butte in Eugene, Oregon in the 90’s, took a van ride, started talking about music and they ended up here, now.

You can be proud, Oregon. You should be proud.

Just Listen.

• Boone Johnson plays acoustic guitar
• Michael Robert Swanson plays electric guitar
  (Moon and Bike is a play on their names, Boone and Mike.)