Although the songs were written in 2019, are performed by artists born in the 1980s and are available digitally, Rachael & Vilray would sound right at home on a scratchy, old 78-rpm vinyl disc.

The debut duo LP from Lake Street Dive vocalist Rachael Price and mononym guitarist/singer/songwriter Vilray is an homage to jazz music of the 1930s and ’40s with assistance from LSD keyboardist Akie Bermiss, a rhythm section, occasional horns and Jon Batiste on one track. 

Vilray wrote 10 of the 12 tracks as if he came from another era. His use of period terms and arrangements and clever placement of whistling to denote contentment on “Do Friends Fall in Love” and scat singing in the place of getting busy on “Let’s Make Love on this Plane” add to his throwback bonafides. 

With a guitar style that recalls Les Paul and a Sinatra-smooth voice, Vilray complements Price’s vocals on jumping numbers like “The Laundromat Swing,” and in Spanish on the balladic “Nosotros,” one of two covers to grace the self-titled effort. 

For her part, Price is equally fetching whether singing torch songs like Peggy Lee’s “I Love the Way You’re Breaking My Heart” or jivey tracks such as “At Your Mother’s House” and solidifies her status as a generational talent in the process. 

“She shows me pictures/of little you in the nude/and it would be rude of me/not to let her see/the ones that I have took of you,” Price sings on the latter. 

The fact Vilray was able to pepper the songs with humor only adds to Rachael & Vilray’s allure.