If you’re looking for the latest swamp funk party throwdown from Walter Jr., baby, this ain’t it. Instead, A Long Way from Lafayette is a long ways from anything Walter has ever recorded—a predominantly subdued, intimate acoustic affair of introspective compositions. The tunes were conceived years ago and laid dormant until Walter began performing with Robert Nash. The upright bassist’s modern classical/jazz-tinged accompaniment compliments Walter’s caressing guitar style and wispy, soul-quivery vocals well, allowing him ample space to delve into a particular life chapter and express its emotional content as if it were just yesterday.

A few Louisiana-themed tunes break the mellow motif, somewhat, with their buoyant, joyous spirit. On “Brass Tacks,” the disc’s most inventive arrangement, Walter’s hypnotic, rhythmic picking pattern is joined by producer Ivan Klisanin’s organic, hiphop-bordering beats. Pretty soon, Walter strays off onto a stinging, string-bending tear, setting up a call-and-response interplay with Nash, who ultimately delivers a bow hair-shredding solo that’s somewhere between avant and abstract. While these proceedings may present Walter in a different light, there’s never any disappointment in terms of artistic merit.