There's no shortage of backstory for the man behind Little Wings: Kyle Field has been a surfer, a transient living out of the back of a camper, an artist who'll soon be publishing a book, and a member of a band with M. Ward. He's also collaborated with everyone from unsung lo-fi folkies from Indiana to Jason Lytle of Grandaddy.
Even with Field's long history, you can jump in right here with Soft Pow'r, a completely self-contained and accessible work that is more austere than many of his records but no less affecting. For all his prior collaborative work, this album sounds very isolated. The quiet acoustic opener "Scuby" sets the tone for the rest of the brief and understated record, just Field's voice and guitar with subtle additions like the muffled drum loop and few scattered, idle notes of piano.
There's no shortage of precious singer/songwriter records in the world, but Field's voice is distinct and has both tenderness and quiet authority. When he double-tracks his voice, he actually thinks about it, as "Scuby" has one deep, sonorous, and flatly-intoned line anchoring another sung in a high register that sounds full of yearning. They meet on a few goose-bump-raising moments before the chorus, together creating a sort of layered resignation. These are the kinds of small shades of quiet longing that typify the record.
It's that quiet authority that saves the more mundane sentiments of tracks like "Gone Again", which repeats the simple phrase "miss you so much" again and again but never becomes overly precious or maudlin. While the songs that add a bit more piano and drums and reach for a less ephemeral strain of soft-rock, like "Warming" or "Free Bird", have Field straining his delivery somewhat, it's mostly just impressive how much he does with so little. Even the languid, rhythm-free "Saturday" sounds like it could have been made up on the spot, but Field's intonation still arrests the attention.
Given its uniformity, it helps that Soft Pow'r straddles the line between album and EP with just seven tracks. Short albums are nothing to complain about, especially ones as consistent as this. It won't change your life, but it just happens to be a successful change in tone and another worthwhile album in a catalog full of them.
