Son of Spergy

Daniel Caesar is very good at singing so that it sounds like an offhand remark. The volume isn’t high, and the vocal runs may not be especially showy, but once he opens his mouth, the instruments seem to step back a little on their own. Son of Spergy still has this pull, only this time he doesn’t keep himself at the center of a romance the whole time. He starts looking more seriously at his father, and at what he has inherited from his father.

Spergy is his father’s nickname, and the cover puts his father’s image right on it. This decision already adds a bit of pressure to the album. When you write about a relative you once had a tense relationship with, it is easy to move into reconciliation too early, or to sum up many years of problems in a few sentences of blame. What is good about this album is that both feelings can still be heard. Closeness is happening, and the old matters haven’t automatically become irrelevant because of it.

Rain Down opens with a choir, and Sampha’s voice is in it too. The layering of voices is very soft, but has a weight close to prayer. Daniel’s religious upbringing turns here into a concrete way of singing, with the lead and the harmonies answering each other, simple lines sung again and again, and the feeling gathering bit by bit. The influence of gospel music runs through the whole album, but you don’t need to know his whole life story to feel the support these voices give him.

Have a Baby (With Me) says the wish for a family very directly. The piano and the rhythm leave space, and the voice feels intimate inside it. An invitation like this can of course be very romantic, but heard within this album, it also makes me think about how much preparation it takes to build a new family. Whether the longing for the future also contains an expectation of repairing the past. The song doesn’t spell out the question, and this uncertainty is worth keeping.

Call on Me makes the sound a little rougher, and the texture of the guitar and the rhythm add friction to the softer part before it. Daniel’s melody is still smooth, but doesn’t sink completely into comfort. I like these brief changes, because the vocals on the whole album are so easy to relax into, and now and then something else is needed to call attention back.

Baby Blue is the song on this album you can’t get around. His father, Norwill Simmonds, really joins in the singing, and father and son are no longer just a pair of relations in the lyrics. They have to breathe and take turns with lines inside the same piece of music. The two voices have places where they can recognize each other, and also clearly different weights. Listening to them joined together is more convincing than any line explaining reconciliation.

This song also isn’t made into a proper family memorial. The arrangement changes, the sound is sometimes processed to be less natural, and the sections don’t walk steadily all the way to a climax. For me, this not entirely stable shape is actually fitting. The two are already willing to sing together, and the relationship still needs to keep going, and can’t be settled once and for all in one song.

Root of All Evil takes the self-examination further. The album talks about the father, and gradually also about Daniel’s own desires and responsibilities. If a person only explains all his own problems as results of how he grew up, in the end it is still hard to change anything. Here he doesn’t stand the whole time in the position of waiting for an apology, and this gives the whole album more weight.

Who Knows is a light one among them. The acoustic guitar and the voice sit very close, the melody follows the tone of speech, and not every rise and fall of feeling is turned into a big scene. I really like the uncertainty it leaves. If the two can get along right now, then get along seriously for now, and there is no need for the future to be guaranteed immediately. On an album that keeps looking back at the previous generation, this attitude also seems precious.

In Moon, Bon Iver’s voice brings another kind of sense of space. Voices are layered and pushed far away, the words are sometimes no longer the only center of attention, and the contact between timbres matters as well. By Touching God, the addition of Yebba and Blood Orange makes the parts richer again. Each of them is very good at handling small changes in volume, and the power of the song comes from listening to each other and making room for each other.

But this beautiful collaboration also has a cost. The soft tones in the middle and later part continue without a break, and the edges of several songs become similar. The melodies certainly differ, but on a first full listen it is easy to remember only one big stretch of warm sound. Sign of the Times and Emily’s Song are relatively compact, and at least let the album keep some breathing room here, without stretching every feeling out too long.

No More Loving on Women I Don’t Love puts responsibility back into love life. The frankness of the title carries a somewhat late self-awareness, admitting that his behavior makes others pay a price. A song like this is meaningful under the father and son theme: discussing the influence the previous generation left, in the end you still have to return to how you treat the person in front of you.

Sins of the Father ends with a longer stretch of time, with Bon Iver appearing again, and the voice and accompaniment slowly piling up. Nearly eight minutes gives some lines a chance to be understood again, and the places that first seemed like blame may later also carry doubt about himself. But I didn’t feel it demands that the listener must forgive anyone. It is more about admitting that a family tie stays in a person’s voice for a long time.

What I like most about Son of Spergy is still the moment in Baby Blue when the father really opens his mouth. All the earlier thoughts about inheritance, conflict and getting closer now have an object that can be heard. Singing well is of course important, and two people being willing to leave their voices in the same song is already a very concrete thing done.