Son Little ‘enhances’ influences on ‘aloha’

Dustbowl Revival cheers

S“aloha” (ANTI-) Son Little lost them all. He had almost a dozen demos for a new album but he failed to backup the files and the tunes were gone forever when his hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure.

Bewildered but unbroken, he wrote another batch in eight days. Despite the setback or maybe because of it, “aloha,” Little’s third album, finds him in a more basic setting, with mostly simpler arrangements than on his earlier releases.

Still, Little’s excellent vocals and evocative songwriting carry the day, with a clear assist from Renaud Letang, the first time Little has worked with an outside producer. Letang’s filters mesh expertly with Little’s talents.

Little, born Aaron Earl Livingston and with a career stretching back several years before his 2015 solo debut, made a trademark out of updating traditional R&B, blues and soul sounds with electronic beats and hip-hop sensibilities, with the latter complementing but not upstaging the former. And here, too, he plays nearly every instrument.

Opener “hey rose” - there are no capital letters in the song titles - is passionate and daring, with Little turning the volume of his voice up and down as needed. The rhythm is dance-ready but not furious, sometimes barely more than handclaps and a grumbling bass line, suggestive instead of overbearing.

“about her. again.” could be Jimi Hendrix, singing but not playing, covering the Impressions. The song has a very ’60s-like refrain and more of the quiet/notso-quiet dynamics. “mahalia” includes a cutting guitar tone and seems preoccupied with missed opportunities - “This life’s full of promises we’d keep but we never make” - a disclaimer for whatever will end up ruining the relationship.

Other highlights include the reflective “suffer,” with some very cool synth sounds, the percussion-driven “3rd eye weeping” and the smooth, layered simplicity of closer “after all (i must be wrong).”

With the merits of “aloha” providing ample comforts, it makes no sense to miss those lost tracks.

Little

By Pablo Gorondi

“Is It You, Is It Me”

(Thirty

Tigers)

Eclectic roots rockers Dustbowl Revival declare what they’re up to vividly on “Just One Song,” a cut from their new album, “Is It You, Is It Me.”

“I can turn it around, I can right a wrong, give me just one song,” intones lead singer Z. Lupetin with typically soulful, understated charm.

It’s practically a mission statement, a declaration of the purpose that animates the band’s fourth album from start to finish: Dustbowl Revival wants to cheer you up.

Over the course of 13 songs, the Los Angeles-based ensemble works in a wide range of musical styles, most of them accentuating the positive.

There’s the wistful balladry of “Mirror,” a sad but ultimately encouraging song that is probably the album’s best cut. There’s the horn-infused and pulsating “Enemy,” where Liz Beebe sings about a contentious relationship that’s built around the desire to let things lie.

And then there are the more upbeat numbers, like “Just One Song” and the closer, “Let It Go.” The latter bears only a passing similarity to Idina Menzel’s “Frozen” anthem of the same name, and feels personal enough to stand on its own.

All of the songs here feel less rootsy than the band’s earlier work, and generally less fun. For all of its positivity, the album doesn’t quite capture Dustbowl Revival’s spirit. A better place to find that for the uninitiated is an old YouTube clip of the band breaking out in a song called “Ain’t My Fault” in the public terminal of the Newark airport.

Compared to that scene, this set sounds subdued. The talent is there, and the positivity is laudable, but it just doesn’t match the gusto of their earlier work.

“Circles” (Warner) “Why does everybody need me to stay?” Mac Miller asks on the first single from his latest release. He answered his own question with the superb posthumous “Circles.”

Miller’s 12-track album is heartbreakingly sublime, a portrait of a wry and honest musician acknowledging his demons but looking past them. “I’m here to make it all better with a little music for you,” he sings.

Miller died of an accidental drug overdose in 2018 at 26 and was working on “Circles” as a sort of companion album to his Grammy-nominated “Swimming.” Producer Jon Brion, who worked on “Swimming” and also produced for Kanye West and Dido, was asked to finish Miller’s work.

“Circles” shares the appealing confessional lyrics of “Swimming” but is more airy, more muted and understated. Miller was always an idiosyncratic artist, mixing hip-hop beats and samples with soul and warm funk, even jazz. Here, he is low-key, moody, spacey and anesthetized. He sings more than he raps. There’s nothing flashy. Everything’s thoughtful.

“Circles” is both spare but somehow full. A tiny hesitating sample serves at the backbone to “Blue World,” a lazy drum and piano do the same for “I Can See.” A repeated “eh-uh” runs through “Hands” and “Complicated” at first seems too simple but subsequent listens reveals a jewel-like construction.

The first single, “Good News,” is addictive and must surly be a defining song for an artist taken far too soon. Delicate guitar plucking accompanies Miller’s hangdog lyrics. “Runnin’ out of gas, hardly anything left,” he sings. “So tired of being so tired.” Brion is rightly in no rush to end it, and lets Miller go for more than 5 1/2 minutes.

Listeners will naturally focus on the references to death and they are definitely there. “Everybody’s gotta live/And everybody’s gonna die,” he sings on “Everybody.” But he’s OK, too. “I’ve been alright” and “I’m feelin’ fine.” His advice to others? “Do not be afraid” and “take a little time for yourself.”

“Woods,” which flows on a bed of airy synths, is Miller at his most seductive, funky and mature. It’s remarkable to look back and listen to his cluttered and more juvenile stuff of just seven years ago. Miller’s evocative voice even tries at a tender falsetto in “Surf,” with the optimistic lines: “Until we get old/ There’s water in the flowers/Let’s grow.” That he didn’t get a chance to grow himself is a tragedy that this album only somewhat alleviates. (AP)