Little Name is FINALLY out with his debut album, “How to swim and live”, after teasing us for a long time with one perfect pop song after another on his website and his myspace. Some of you may remember the title track, which was featured on our own Eardrums Mixtape #10, “Sweet Harmony” earlier this year.

Behind Little Name stands Lee Barker from Liverpool, and although it sounds like he is accompanied by an orchestra of trumpets, piano, guitars, bass, drums, glockenspiels, strings and organs, he does it all by himself. In the album credits, we can read that he has had some help with the female backing vocals on a few tracks, and I would be very surprised if he hadn’t. The overall aestethics of the project is also impressive, - the sweet 60-inspired sound fits the packing of the cd perfectly with photos from the same period and nice informative texts on the cover about the positive effects of swimming.

So, what about the music? Most of it is just as good as I’d expected, and the charm-factor is high. I adore the title track, and has been infected by its beauty for a long time now. The track “Nobody loves you” reaches the same heights as the almost perfect title track. Other favourites are the enjoyable pop-pearl “For the attention of“, where I get my must-have dose of trumpets. Give me trumpets in an indiepop-song, and I’ll probably love it instantly. The ending track “You tear my love apart” is also a killer-popsong, - perfect for a summer day in the park or on the beach. Every song on this album has an atmosphere of friendliness and kindness, and based on a few e-mails I’ve received from Lee Barker, that is exactly how my impression of the man behind the music is. Kind and friendly.

The lyrics are interesting, witty and sometimes quotable. Through his lyrics, Barker shows us that he has seen both the bright sides and the darker sides of life, and he writes in a way that makes us feel the presense of both sides at the same time.

If you need a reference for the kind of music Little Name plays, I can try to give you a hint; Add these ingredients, mix it with the clever mind of Lee Barker, and you’ll have Little Name: The Beach Boys, The Smiths, Camera Obscura, Belle and Sebastian, Burt Bacharach, some sunshine, some rain, life itself and the art of swimming.
Lee Barker has definitely managed to create a sound of his own, even if it is easy to find references to other people’s music in the sound of his songs. I really like the production of this album a lot, - it has personality.

The debut album from Little Name was a very awaited piece of music for me, and I’m not disappointed. “How to swim and live” is full of great songs and definitely recommended. However, it is not perfect. The distance from Lee Barker’s songs at their best and at their worst is huge. He is a very good songwriter, and many of the songs are what I would call perfect popsongs. Other songs on the album feels more like “fillers”, - songs that doesn’t do anything for me, - songs that just floats in and out. The album has an overweight of the good ones, some perfect ones and a few of those lightweighters that just leave us with no memory of them at all.
It’s probably just me, but I feel that endings are important. I’m a bit weird on this probably, but the endings on many of Lee Barker’s songs irritate me… - I do not like that songs end in a “wahhh” of reverb! Awful! Fading is underrated!
Well, I should not and will not make this overshadow the satisfaction I feel at the moment, so I’ll just continue to love Little Name! Little Name deserves to be loved.

Little Name - Nobody Loves You

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