Spectreview: SAULT – AIR

SAULT’s orchestral AIR is a confounding left turn for the enigmatic London collective. It both benefits from the group’s social consciousness and constantly elicits chills.

Released: April 15, 2022

Classical
(Modern Choral)
(Orchestral)

-WITCH HAZE-

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SAULT could be the epitome of the modern musical act. Because there are no identifiable members other than the ones that step briefly out of the shade of anonymity – Dean Josiah Cover, aka Inflo, chief among them – they share a category with countless “uncoverable” acts littered across Bandcamp. This means the music can represent itself, and since 5 and 7 dropped in 2019 they’ve established themselves as seekers of communal enlightenment: a collective force of curative curation. When you think of SAULT you’ll likely picture outdoor parties and rooftop barbecues, lights strung on railings, bodies dancing, BLM signs peppering shop windows below. They deviated slightly on the limited-time-only release NINE, but for the most part SAULT have a style down that they want you to expect whenever Inflo decides to drop new music.

AIR jettisons that expectation almost completely. The first thing you hear upon pressing play is the rush of staccato choral voices and strings, but that symphonic grandeur is neither a canny intro nor a red herring. The entire record plays like the soundtrack to a space opera, so constant are its romantic swells of violins and jolts of piercing sopranos, weightless horns and plaintive harp. It takes about a half an hour for anything resembling a SAULT record to surface; “Time is Precious” breaks its spell halfway through and deviates into an enchanting a capella encouragement, and its singularness makes it even more effective.

Clearly there’s precedent to this sound if you’ve been paying attention to the Inflo Cinematic Universe. The sweeping instrumentals on Little Simz’ Sometimes I Might Be Introvert bear the same aesthetic components and may even have come from the same sessions. But working with a full choir and orchestra is still relatively new to the mysterious producer, and he pulls this kind of music off like a seasoned pro. He works with a whole range of dynamics – not just in songs, but across the album – that lend the project a cinematic feel, from how the full blast of “June 55” drops into a tense crescendo to how “Luos Higher” ends enigmatically with a plucked jam. The twelve-minute “Solar” is a particular highlight for how it builds recursively on itself, floating between movements like the title suggests. While there’s not much groundbreaking here from a genre basis, it does warp the SAULT moniker into one with potentially infinite capabilities.

It’s also a brilliant move from an act known for a very specific MO, because the weight of their previous works colors this one. There’s almost nothing compositionally in AIR to signify what it’s really about, but because it’s SAULT, and because we know they care deeply about the resilience of Black people, that history implicitly anchors the record to a theme. It’s one that feels directly oppositional to the pessimism of A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Space Program.” The scope of the orchestra and the power of the choir signify achievement, discovery and triumph in ways that feel far more abstract than I would have ever given SAULT credit for, which is why, despite its outlier status, it may just be their best record.

Highly recommended for taking a step.