Little Sun

Austin, Minnesota’s Charlie Parr is leaving behind the country-blues derivations of his earliest works. For all their ramshackle charms, albums such as King Earl and When the Devil Goes Blind reverently threw back to Delta giants such as Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt, allowing only scant glimpses of the personality behind their creation. But Parr’s move to Smithsonian Folkways has seen him shift incrementally, and perhaps ironically given that imprint’s stock-and-trade, from the traditions which initially inspired him to reach for a guitar, towards a more idiosyncratic version of himself. On 2021’s sublime Last of the Better Days Ahead, and now with Little Sun, Parr has established himself as a distinctly enigmatic chronicler of blue-collar bucolics, fusing honky-tonk hullabaloo and stargazing folk balladry, delivered in singular style with customary honesty and verve. Lead single ‘Boombox’ bustles with clanky resonator slide and Asher Fulero’s tinkling ivories; the raga-like ‘Bear Head Lake’, a striking pantheist meditation where skyline and shoreline meld, is redolent of a lost Robbie Basho side, while best of all is ‘Pale Fire’, featuring Anna Tivel’s tender vocals and Parr’s quivery warble, kindled by guitarist Marisa Anderson’s fulsome tones glistening like a field full of fireflies. Yet, for all its ambition and ornamentation, Little Sun is never indulgent or flash, the introduction of additional colourings serving, rather than stifling, the convivial drawl of arguably America’s finest living troubadour.