SON LITTLE

In the organizer's words:

Son Little is a multilingual translator and rightful torchbearer of the rhythm and blues tradition. He has been revolutionizing expectations of it in his own way for years, while delivering an unadulterated delivery of black American music in its prayerful and pleading native tongue. His DIY productions, often created on 4-track cassette recorders, are full of hooks, exciting ideas and soul.

His new album "Like Neptune" was recorded in a cottage overlooking the Delaware River in upstate New York. Aaron Earl Livingston aka Son Little trades the existential dread that permeated his earlier works for unbridled joy and self-acceptance. In this lush space of freedom, Son Little transforms the chronic pain of self-doubt into a beautiful opus that deals with overcoming generational trauma, adorning the altar of primal blues and elevating the work of healing to high art.

During the lockdown, Livingston began looking through his old writing books and found 72 of them, dating back to when he was 9 years old. In one of those books, he wrote about being sexually abused by a neighbor in Queens when he was about 5 years old, which he didn't confess to his mother until after his 19th birthday. This revelation eventually led him to seek therapy.

Years of anxiety, depression, panic attacks and existential fears followed, often numbed by alcohol, drugs or sex. A frightening car accident and an arrest finally led him back into therapy in 2017. Using progressive methods such as EMDR and somatic healing, Livingston, with the help of a trusted therapist, began to identify the roots of his trauma.

Son Little returned to his journals, happy to be in lockdown during the pandemic. He began making beats and using apps on his iPad, later completing programming and adding live instrumentation in Ableton Live. He was inspired by David Bowie from the 70s and the psychedelic Amazon cumbia of the same era.