Fluxblog
July 1st, 2021 2:31am

Tomorrow We Will See


Sault “Bitter Streets”

You could create a conspiracy theorist pinboard for Sault where you can connect the names of everyone involved, from the primary producer Inflo to regular singer Cleo Sol to an extended network of collaborators including Little Simz and Jack Peñate on the new record. You could try to crack the code of their oblique album titles and minimalist art, or speculate as to the politics that drive their lyrics and distribution models. But despite them creating a natural curiosity gap with their deliberately mysterious shtick, thinking about this misses the obvious point that they clearly want this music to be faceless and to speak for itself.

“Bitter Streets,” a song credited to Inflo, Cleo Sol, and Jack Peñate, is Sault in mellow and meditative mode. The arrangement is straight-up stunning – womb-warm bass gliding around a crisp pocket beat, a choral part that sounds like it’s being played on an old Melotron, and a string section part that’s almost but not quite understated. The music nods in the direction of melodrama but doesn’t go there, evoking a very movie mood without straining for a “cinematic” feel. Sol’s vocal performance is similarly low-key, investing her lament for a friend who “fell in love with the streets” with a world-weariness but not a heavy grief. She’s not singing like someone who is surprised by anything that’s happened. If anything, she sounds bored by the same story, over and over.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

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