Desmond WhiteRun the Sunny Gauntlet2021Run the Sunny Gauntlet is White’s testimony to this openness. With sublime songcraft, rich harmony and understated delivery, the singer’s introspection blooms into warm, soulful optimism and memorable choruses. White’s plaintive double-tracked vocals recall Elliott Smith, the melancholy buoyed by warm, jazz-inflected Rhodes keyboard and shifting grooves. There’s a Jeff Buckley-like gloss to fingerpicked guitar, while the bass (White’s principal instrument, though he plays most others on this album) punctuates with subtly complex countermelodies. The songs revolve around slyly twisting chord progressions, as smart, Thundercat-colored key changes and syncopations smoulder beneath White’s unadorned vocals.
