Description

1LP Vinyl – FLO0008LP

The elusive UK group’s third album in just over a year—to be made available online for only 99 days digitally—renders Black trauma in the eerie, sing-song cadences of children’s rhymes.

After springing up out of nowhere with no backstory or profile to release two of the best albums of 2020, UNTITLED (Black Is) and UNITITLED (Rise), London collective Sault has returned to present its latest opus, NINE. The group has remained shrouded in mystery since inception, the identities and numbers of its members remain a source of much debate amongst red-eyed music obsessives searching for a sense of myth and legend which has been missing for decades. The few members confirmed thus far include Mercury Prize-winning singer Michael Kiwanuka and producer Inflo, who has worked with Little Simz amongst others. The combination of gritty, raw soul, warped electronics and a powerful message on racial equality at a time which required it offered the group the spotlight but they remained in the shadows. Now that some of the dust from the tumultuous summer of 2020 has started to settle, NINE emerges from the clouds with a collection of hard, weird and tender songs to make sure people keep filling those digital columns with baseless speculation. This project will only be available to download for 99 days. Playing around with the widely accepted album format is a dangerous game, but Sault scoff at danger from their cloaks of anonymity.