Sault - What's the story?

Did Geir write that?

I'd call them more a groove band than a jam band, but he's not wrong about that part — it's part of what I like about them, they build songs around grooves. But the idea that this is all mostly improvised is bizarre.

discussed a lil bit here - OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Terrible take. Also it’s sort of taking issue with statements not made by the band? The band themselves are not explicit about their intentions with each release, we don’t know if they’re commenting about the perception of scarcity or democratization of art or the disposability and/or fleetingness of the medium or whatever this reviewer is taking from it.

The anonymity amplifies the music, which should be the focus imho

between assuming that most of the music is improvised and that the band is a cooperative of hundreds of pro session musicians "donating bits of spare stuff"(?), he seems to be completely naïve about the basics of how bands operate and how albums are recorded. its very strange, especially considering his bio identifies him as a former "Professor of Music Industry Innovation"

also funny that this guy whose expertise is new media/"innovation" seems to take it for granted that AIIR must have been created with a massive live orchestra and not with VST/synth stuff

is that piece going viral or something? I've never heard of this guy

It’s a dumb piece

AIR does sound like a hybrid of session orchestra and VSTs… what impresses me most about it is the plucked string writing— dual harps (which at times sounds like, and might be, a kora) and pipa, it’s produced/recorded/written extremely well— less so but still the case on AIIR

Side effects of that article - it is giving me nostalgia flashbacks to circa 2007-08 when everyone (including me) had a music blog and felt like they needed to express their opinions in 500-word daily dispatches on every item of music news. That tone of self-inflicted resentment, "Why must I be obliged to engage with this??"

I listened to 11 today and every song immediately set the mood but lost my interest by the end

that's how i felt too, nice vibes but not much more

The piece linked above is indeed terrible but I have to concede this one point:

Making everything free might help audiences at a time of fiscal crisis, but it does absolutely nothing for the cause of independent musicians desperately trying to assert the economic value of their work.

TBF, they were saying that when Radiohead did the In Rainbows experiment so it's not like this is even a new complaint on his part.

it's very silly to be hung up on albums being given away freely in the age of streaming, when that's an actual problem for "independent artists desperately trying to assert the value of their work"

I listened to 11 today and every song immediately set the mood but lost my interest by the end

Every cult artist has their Sandinista where they flood the audience with so much material they're not sure how to engage with it.

How long is each album btw?

aiir is 25 minutes, untitled (god) is 73 minutes, the others are around 40 minutes

Making everything free might help audiences at a time of fiscal crisis, but it does absolutely nothing for the cause of independent musicians desperately trying to assert the economic value of their work.

I intuit that this is a really bad argument, but I don't have the verbal skills to explain why rn

I was struck today while attempting a listen-through of Untitled (God) that the inclusion of so many essentially-unfinished tracks and field recordings was depreciating the value of my time spent as a listener

I think that argument would make more sense for an independent artist that operates far less cryptically and maybe only releases one album every 2-3 years. I think most people familiar with Sault realize by now they're doing their own singular thing and keeping people guessing.

BTW, I'm listening to "Air" for the first time this year. It didn't sound like it would be my thing but it kinda is. It sounds the score of an uplifting film from an alternate 50s/early 60s Hollywood that had greater equality.

Finally got to listen to one of these, with full attention--randomly chose '11'. It is very low-key, but personally I love that from Sault--super stripped-down, like I loved from '5' and '7' but mellower. A perfect sound space for what was a beautiful autumn afternoon.

(I still can't really get into the quasi-motivational spoken word parts, as with the previous 'Untitled' albums, but as a jaded non-religious anti-self-help realist, I'm probably as far from the target audience of those parts as possible.)

I feel like I'm going to love 'Today & Tomorrow,' as a big fan of Ngozi Family and Chrissy Zebby Tembo, and Zamrock generally, few bits I heard on preview really reminded me of.

Insofar as “a consumer listening to recorded music”, the recorded music has been without-value-to-the-creator for over two decades— for those of us who did use Napster, creators who did encourage people to buy what they could afford and steal what they couldn’t, for those of us who groaned at Lars Ulrich etc.

The obscenity that creators face at present is that third parties have stepped in to profit off the consumer-artist association without fairly compensating the creator. Personally I’d prefer that consumers steal music than listen to it via Spotify et al, and I think this is a common feeling, so long as DSPs continue to be big-business thieves

Claiming that a creator is depreciating the value of recorded music in this specific usage of it— consumers listening in private— by making the music free, is incorrect. Within this context I posit that recorded music has long been effectively valueless; the evil profiteers within the industry are DSPs, not creators who make their music available for free

Thanks for indulging me as a type about a difficult thing to type about

Booming post

'Today & Tomorrow' just had me grinning ear to ear from about 3 minutes into the opener all the way through. Scuzzy proto-metal/Zamrocky fuzz guitar, bouncy and loose drums, and "lead vocals" mostly by what sounds like a dozen kids--just an absolute joy.

Released on its own, I think some people would've lashed out against 'Today & Tomorrow' for its simplicity and (intentional) low-polish approach (just as some might simultaneously dislike 'Aiir' for being too polished). Hopefully as part of this mega-batch-release, people can roll with it as a valid facet of Sault's many paths of expression.

I can see why people might hear it as slight or half baked but I love the ramshackle energy, reminds me of that elusive ESG feel at times

What are we going to do when Kanye inevitably gets his hands on Inflo?

lol there's no way that happens at this stage

I like AIIR significantly more than AIR. (I refreshed my memory of the earlier release in the meantime.) These tracks sound a little more like satellites of the last Little Simz record, perhaps. And, though I probably can't reliably tell the difference, I'm less often distracted by thoughts about which elements might be synthetic vs live ensemble lol.

I really hope these come out on CD... But I guess I'd doubt it.

These are on Spotify now

Also available as digital (incl lossless), CD and vinyl via Bandcamp. Digital albums are £7 each.

ooh thanks for that Bandcamp tip

oic I guess I thought "Available for free download for 5 days" meant "...and then will disappear like the last album" rather than "...and then will be available for non-free download"

i thought the same.

that's a lot of vinyl at once!

is it just me, or does the streaming audio on these sound better than the MP3s?

Doubtful on Bandcamp (streams at 128 if you haven't purchased) but could be better on Spotify (full res depending on settings etc.)

For some reason Untitled (God) not on Spotify but the other 4 are.

Oh wow, did not think they'd come out on CD! Instant buy, comes out to like $22/album w/ international shipping, and I'm good with that.

Didn't realise Aiir was also on there as it's listed as a single rather than album xp

Are the credits for the recent batch of releases available anywhere? It would be interested to know the delineation of writing, producing, arranging on these records. From some digging I did on social media it looks like some new people were involved. It would be good to get a complete picture.

all that's available for some of their previous albums is writing credits from publishing databases, but there's nothing about any of this year's releases on those.

on previous albums, writing credits were generally inflo/cleo sol or inflo/kid sister, depending on who's doing lead vocals - occasionally both. kadeem clarke (a session guy who's a regular inflo collaborator) is credited occasionally. instrumentals are often credited just to inflo. occasionally others are credited, like simz and kiwanuka on the tracks they're featured on, and josh lloyd-watson from jungle and jack penante have made appearances before.

producing is pretty clearly all inflo though, it's his project.

there do seem to be some new vocalists appearing on this most recent set of releases but i haven't made any effort to identify them.

Little Simz is on Free.

Jack Peñate, Cleo Sol and Chronixx are also in there.

Very ltd. quantities available for pre-order: LPs & CDs ov five recent releases:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/11_2

I think they're all readily available (for pre-order) on Bandcamp, too:

https://saultglobal.bandcamp.com/merch

Anybody (esp. in the States) received their CDs/LPs from the five albums that released last November?

Getting slightly worried mine were lost in the mail, but then again international parcel shipping seems totally haywire currently...

They've only just started coming out in the last week in the UK.

I'd waited until I got LPs before listening on Streaming. Today & Tomorrow is a real surprise. I'd love to know who is singing on this.

Yeah--I wrote to Forever Living Originals via Bandcamp basically just to make sure they hadn't been sent and lost in the post. Got this response:

"We currently have an issue we are clearing with our couriers before the last of our orders can be shipped."

Which at least means they're still planning to ship. I've bought every album they've issued on CD and a few on LP, but that didn't keep me from being among the last orders heh

Woo! Finally got the CDs for the five new ones. An incredible body of work for an entire career, much less a few years (plus Cleo Sol, Little Simz, and Michael Kiwanuka albums).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzquLwmXsAEJmdE?format=jpg&name=large

I saw that Deep Discount has the last five on CD, in stock, for the not-too-terrible price of $17.99 each (and they have "AIR" on CD and vinyl, too). On their Bandcamp, right now the only thing NOT sold out (except digital downloads of course) is "AIR" on CD.