Timms and Langford Stay True to Roots

Just because you sing about wide-open spaces doesn’t mean you want to see them in a club where you’re performing.

At Vynyl on Tuesday, Sally Timms surveyed the sparse gathering and introduced a song borrowed from alt-country act the Handsome Family, dryly adding, “who I assume produces similar audiences in L.A.” But Jon Langford, her droll and sanguine partner, chimed in, “It’s quality we’re after here.”

Such is life for Timms and Langford, who in some 20 years anchoring England’s mercurial Mekons remain living examples of perseverance and independence. On Tuesday, the pair played out that dedication through the American country- and folk-rooted material of their various solo efforts, highlighting their new, aptly titled duo EP “Songs of False Hope and High Values.”

Timms applied her rich, clear voice to sorrowful ballads and dreamy waltzes, mostly about characters who wish they were someone else (often cowboys) and somewhere else (generally on the lone prairie). With acoustic backing from guitarist Langford, strings performer Jon Rauhouse and upright bassist Cherilyn DiMond, she easily connected the dots between English balladry and American story-songs, a kinship especially clear on Dolly Parton’s “Down to Dover.”

Langford, with Rauhouse and DiMond, followed with songs of similar roots. But his characters, bruised and battered, were defiantly determined that the world, not they, must change. A spiritual presence throughout was Johnny Cash, whose songs were done by both Timms and Langford, serving as a reminder that quality is its own reward.