Son Little
Son Little
ANTI-
7/10
Few people are truly listening to Son Little for the instrumentation. But the attention given to Aaron Livingston’s heart-halting voice—the one that first rose to acclaim in collaboration with The Roots and RJD2, and the one that showed both sides of the sandpaper well on last year’s Things I Forgot EP—has meant that a large part of what makes him special has gotten lost in the shuffle. Like an artist rising out of the limelight, Livingston’s backing arrangements are free from expectation or, frankly, standards of any kind. In other words, he’s allowed to get weird. And he does. This debut LP has a raft of eccentric details that contrast the classic timbre of his voice. There’s the dirty backwoods blues of “Carbon,” then a pivot one tune later to the barbershop swoon of “Lay Down.” Oh, there’s a banjo, too. Isn’t this supposed to be a soul record?
Studding his record with unexpected flourishes, Son Little gleefully pulls the hood of a style-sampling hip-hop artist over his son-of-a-preacher-man’s head. “Loser Blues” starts with heavy toms echoing over a sea of haunted house squeaks, and the effect is certifiably chilling. Not every curveball hits, of course, but even when the bubbling guitar solo of “O Mother” lurches when it should soar, Livingston’s vocals are effortless and captivating to buoy a set of songs that are far bolder than they need to be.
