SBTRKT - Wonder Where We Land

SBTRKT

Wonder Where We Land

23 September 2014

Young Turks

 

3 stars out of 5

 

 

Wonder Where We Land is the second LP by London-based electronic producer Aaron Jerome, aka SBTRKT. Jerome isn’t a social person, preferring to perform behind a mask and to not talk to DJs who are playing his records, which is always tricky if you’re trying to make a living from your music—a process which inevitably means marketing yourself as the personality behind the music. (The appropriation of First Nations motifs in his masks is another matter, best left to a discussion about politics rather than music.) For someone who wishes to be a nobody, he’s managed to convince some pretty big names to be guest vocalists on the album, including Sampha, Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, Jessie Ware, and A$AP Ferg.

 

The results are neither here nor there. Wonder Where We Land isn’t a classic by any means—nor is it by any definition bad—and all of the vocal firepower is rather more underwhelming in practice than in theory. It has promise in all sorts of places, from the oddball sonics to Koenig’s turn as a ‘70s funk/soul singer, but the finished product is, unfortunately, rather blah. Not happening enough for the dance floor, not chill enough for the chill-out room, and not I enough for solitary IDM listening, WWWL is destined to become a lost record, and a lost chance for Jerome and company to come up with a good meal using the ingredients they had.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger