Flying under the radar for much of their first decade, Toronto band Little Kid slowly amassed a devoted following for their blend of earthy folk, Christian mysticism, and lo-fi experimental rock. Behind the leadership of singer/songwriter Kenny Boothby, they have adopted a D.I.Y. ethos, self-releasing an array of small-run cassettes, EPs, singles, and five critically lauded albums before signing with Brooklyn’s Solitaire Recordings to make their label debut with 2020′s Transfiguration Highway.
Formed at the end of the 2000s, the project was initially wrought out of Boothby’s home recordings and featured a number of different guest musicians. Although he doesn’t consider Little Kid to be a Christian band in the typical sense, Christian imagery has been a consistent theme in Boothby’s songwriting since the beginning and weaves it way through early albums like 2011′s Logic Songs and 2013′s River of Blood. Experimental recording techniques have also been a staple of Little Kid’s catalog, shaping the way their fusion of folk, country, and fuzzed-out indie rock comes across. By the middle part of the decade, a regular lineup of players was in place including Broderick Germain (drums) and Paul Vroom (bass), both of whom appeared on 2016′s Flowers.
Sun Milk followed a year later with future member Megan Lunn making her first appearance. Though still a cult band, Little Kid had built up a significant fan base and shared stages with a variety of other touring bands like Car Seat Headrest and Half Waif. They continued to evolve in the studio with 2018′s pastoral Might As Well with My Soul, which flirted with alt-country, indie pop, and expansive Dylan-inspired songwriting. Boothby, meanwhile, continued to foster his love of one-of-a-kind home recordings and in 2019 launched a limited cassette series called Botched Restorations that involved fans requesting ten songs from his catalog, which he would then record live to a 60-minute tape in his bedroom.
After ten years of prolific work and growth, Little Kid finally made the jump to a label and signed with Solitaire Recordings in 2020. Their first release for the Brooklyn indie was the ambitious Transfiguration Highway. The following year Solitaire reissue the band’s 2017 album Sun Milk. ~ Timothy Monger