The album cover of Bendrix Littleton’s Deep Dark South shows a pale, shirtless figure wearing a cowboy hat and staring into the abyss of the night sky. One might assume that the photo is of Bennett Littlejohn, the artist who performs as Bendrix Littleton, but it’s merely a look-alike.
“It’s not me, though it looks like it could be me,” Littlejohn tells the Scene. “It really reminded me of home in some way.”
The Texas-born, Nashville-residing artist will release Deep Dark South, his solo debut as Bendrix Littleton, on Friday via Brooklyn label NNA Tapes. The record deals with themes of disillusionment, alcoholism and grief, all grounded in images that call to mind a familiar Southern languor. That said, the cowboy hat on the cover is by no means glib or ironic; it’s just one of many references to the South and adjacent regions that permeate the record.
Littlejohn’s work is deeply influenced by country music. “I love how simple it is, and how it belongs to a form,” he says, citing The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) and Tim McGraw as some all-time favorites. When listening to DDS, it’s entertaining to consider that this lap-steel-playing, Chicks-loving artist could make a record that defies most of the structural and sonic conventions that he praises. All but one of the songs on DDS have been sped up to play 25 percent faster than they were initially recorded, moving the music’s tonal center up about a whole step and making the record a quick 28 minutes. The effect on Littlejohn’s voice isn’t exactly chipmunk-like, but the change is notable.
Littlejohn’s work reminds us that no music exists in a vacuum. For years he made whispery and moody lo-fi as one-half of “NyQuil pop” group Bent Denim, and he’s produced records for angst-ridden DIY rock outfits like Austin, Texas’ Hovvdy and Nashville’s Sinai Vessel. Bendrix Littleton takes on some similar qualities to Littlejohn’s previous work. Yet when listening to the sweeping layered synth arrangements and sparse, haunting verses on DDS, the influence of songwriting legend Lucinda Williams might be most apparent.
In the album’s standout track “Clark,” Littlejohn crafts an elegy for his family friend and mentor Clarke Hammond, a music lover, antique collector and larger-than-life character from Austin. Details of their friendship are shared as the two drive around town in Hammond’s “two-tone beat-up pickup truck,” and Littlejohn goes to visit Hammond in the hospital while he’s recovering from a liver transplant.
Reminiscent of Williams’ classic track “Lake Charles,” a memorial for musician Clyde Woodward, “Clark” takes you through the pain of losing someone you’re close to. Littlejohn sings for Hammond: “If I spent my whole damn life / Living with half the light / You put off in your life / I’d die happy.” Mirrored in Littlejohn’s record you have Williams’ sensibility — raw storytelling that easily puts you in your feelings.
“I use writing as a form of self-help and therapy, in addition to other things,” says Littlejohn. The disillusionment and alcoholism that color DDS make for a lonely scene, one he grapples with continuously throughout the record. On “Daylight Curls,” he sings: “I’ve been out reading at the bar / Till the words blur / Till I feel far away.” In “Deep Dark South,” one of the most memorable lines is, “I’ve seen heaven / It was red wine on ice.” The image of plopping some ice cubes into Trader Joe’s Two-Buck Chuck and sweating out an 80-degree night on the back porch lands close to home if you’ve spent time in the deep dark South. On “Bud Light Flows Like Water,” the shortest and only instrumental track on the record, Littlejohn uses the title to reference a conversation overheard between two older men at Fran’s, the beloved East Nashville dive karaoke bar.
Littlejohn doesn’t want Deep Dark South to take up more space than it needs to. He acknowledges that releasing music at this moment feels strange, especially considering the array of voices calling for widespread, sorely needed social change. The stories Littlejohn tells are part of an alternative kind of Southern music made by folks who acknowledge the deep, deep flaws of the South. Littlejohn and his peers are creating work that steps away from a superficial narrative about the place they call home and, in the process, reveals the truth of their connection to it.
“Music has been really helpful to me,” Littlejohn says, “and I hope that [this record] will be helpful to the people who listen to it.”
