Sault - What's the story?

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.

i sort of got tired of all the marketing and had tuned out, but heard "fear no one" on the radio today, not knowing who it was, and got sucked back in.

There was marketing?

the whole identity of the band is like a giant marketing gimmick?

There's a shtick about it, but it's only effective because of the music. As you say about "Fear No One" e.g.

It doesn’t cross over into too much of a gimmick for me. There’s been some fan service — artificial scarcity with Nine or giving away the last five for free by word of mouth, but it mostly seems rooted in Inflo’s preference to stay out of the spotlight and the collective’s desire to do whatever they want.

it's likely not even the fault of the band (or whatever it is), there's just kind of an aura of obsessive fandom, too many releases, got sort of overwhelmed and tuned out

Nine was good. But the FIVE albums last year were all underwhelming at best, compared to what came before. Suddenly the balance between quality and quantity is all out of whack.

they are underwhelming if you expect to be overwhelmed by them, I think. I dunno I listened to three of them in a row the other week and really liked them. they don't feel as important as the first several but they were good listening. they felt a bit more like mixtapes or extended jams in some ways but I liked them.

It could work as a schtick but I think there’s more to it. There’s only like one photo of Inflo out there iirc and he was already very active prior to Sault.

I don’t think it’s a marketing schtick, even if it ends up working to their favor in some situations, they miss getting reviewed by not doing any press releases and most importantly getting booked for liveshows by being so willfully reclusive.

My theory is that Inflo just really hates the spotlight, he just really loves doing music in the studio and doesn’t care about the rest.

We’ll see I guess but if it was merely a marketing schtick they’ve let pass the timing - and truckloads of money - by not doing any performances anywhere in the past 5 years

Which is to say, if this is a marketing ploy it’s actually making them lose money.

i'd imagine there's pretty heavy overlap between cleo sol's live band and whoever's played on the sault albums

Iirc excluding strings almost everything you hear on Sault and Cleo Sol’s albums is Inflo.

That’s the other thing though, it’s not really a mystery when everyone knows who is running the show.

i got the impression there were likely a bunch of session players from the whole scene around inflo involved

I envision Inflo laying laying down the drums and bass himself a lot of the time. They’re so distinctively plain and raw, they have that quality of a multi-instrumentalist songwriter like Prince rather than session player expertise.

The 3 tracks Inflo produced and cowrote with Adele do have credits and Inflo is credited as playing bass, guitar, electric guitar, drums, piano, organ, percussion, wurlitzer, handclaps.

The only additional musicians credited are Chris Dave on drums, bongo, percussion and David Campbell for strings.

So, I think if it’s mostly inflo doing that on a high profile project Cleo and him are pretty much all the permanent Sault team with some guests here and there.

i can believe that inflo plays a lot of stuff on the sault albums but it's not just him.

the full credits for cleo sol's mother are available and there's more than just inflo on it (he's credited with keys/bass/backing vocals) and it mostly seems to have been recorded as a band.

going through the credits:
kadeem clarke (keys) - he has writing credits on a few sault and little simz tracks, has played on michael kiwanuka and little simz albums, and toured with little simz
michael jablonka (guitar) - kiwanuka's live guitarist
rosie danver (cello & string arrangements) - she's done the string arrangements for a lot of inflo-produced album as well as kanye, adele and many other big names
nathan allen (drums) - he's played on sault records (https://www.saynathan.com/resume) as well as with little simz and kiwanuka and seems to be an in-demand session drummer
alex bonfanti (bass) - kiwanuka's live bassist
graham godfrey (percussion) - kiwanuka's live drummer, played on kiwanuka and little simz albums, also confirmed to have played on sault records (https://www.serendeepity.net/product/pigeon-yagana-ep/)
lewis wright (percussion) - has played with little simz and michael kiwanuka

so just by going through that i was able to confirm a few more names involved in sault beyond clarke (who i was already aware of from the writing credits)

and i forgot to list that rosie danvers has done arrangements for sault too - air, aiir, untitled (rise), and one other (probably untitled (black is) but i can't find confirmation)

Yeah you might be on to something. Strings are definitely guests (unless he's using some really good synth patches) - I guess eventually we'll find out.