Son Little: 'Your Love Will Blow Me Away' CMJ 2015 | NPR MUSIC FRONT ROW

Son Little: 'Your Love Will Blow Me Away' CMJ 2015 | NPR MUSIC FRONT ROW with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, cmj, palehound, rock

Son Little is the embodiment of the truism that most overnight successes take years. Around Philadelphia, the singer/guitarist who goes by his given name Aaron Livingston has been a known entity at least since (his words) "mumbling/freestyling/singing the hook" on The Roots' "Guns Are Drawn," a dubwise track from the group's 2004 album The Tipping Point.

In 2011, Son Little and DJ/producer RJD2 collaborated on a project called Icebird, a collection of studio-controlled progressive pop and psychedelic soul excursions so luxuriously ahead of its time, people still don't quite know how to process it. Which is to say, Son Little took a long, circuitous, sonically adventurous road to the musical space he presented on his self-titled full-length album for Anti- Records, which dropped in October.

At an NPR Music showcase in New York that same month, playing in what amounted to a blues-rock trio alongside bassist Stephen Greenberg and drummer Jesse Maynard, Son Little pulled at his music and reduced it to its stripped-down core. Gone were the ornamental studio textures; in their place remained something simultaneously ancient and modern, beyond simple genre or emotional qualifications. Yet it's quintessentially American, the kind of sound that takes a thousand and one overnights to develop. — PIOTR ORLOV

CREDITS

Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Producers: Saidah Blount, Mito Habe-Evans, Piotr Orlov; Videographers: Julia Reihs, Cameron Robert, A.J. Wilhelm; Audio Engineers: Jay Eigenmann, Josh Rogosin; Production Assistant: Cameron Robert; Host: Bob Boilen; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: (Le) Poisson Rouge