If you’re going to discover, stumble upon and or celebrate any album in this disquieting year of Covid-19, make sure it’s John Sieger’s (slightly tongue-in-cheek) Modern Folk, Vol. II (Vol. I exists only in the deep canyons of his mind). After decades of making tasty, mostly electric music with the R&B Cadets and Semi-Twang, the low-key, high-octane mainstay of the Milwaukee music scene makes a maverick move by caving into his acoustic guitar: “It’s been whispering in my ear, telling me to make a recording with just the two of us. So now I’ve done something pretty close to that.”

Working in part with just three other understated hombres — including former Jethro Burns multi-instrumentalist, John Parrott — Sieger’s come up from the basement where he’s been mixing up the medicine: 11 keeper tunes certain to provide both relief and stimulus. And proof again that the diverse range of artists who’ve covered his songs before (Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, The Bodeans, Flaco Jimenez, Robbie Fulks, Phil Lee, Greg Trooper and Etta James) knew a good secret stash when they found it!

Any one of them, and others, could hit this new batch hard.

Sieger borrows, blends and badasses strains of folk, blues, country and pop into his solid-state songwriting that is, as he says in his scant, personal liner notes, “progressive and traditional at the same time.” There is also a certain amount of artistic homage in play, from the climbs of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline to the endearing sweep of The Flatlanders (“to me, they always seemed like three versions of the same person”).

You also can imagine a powerhouse like Mavis Staples singing Sieger’s spiritual-like “If You’re Gonna Sing.” Or your favorite contemporary singer-songwriters (although he hates the term) covering the more plaintive and instructive ones, “After the Fall,” “Never Borrow Trouble,” or “Happiness is Hard to Find.” Truth is, Modern Folk is a rich banquet of simply made fare.

“I’m just trying to catch up with all those artists who did records like this in their ‘20s so long ago,” he says without a trace of irony.