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

SBTRKT - Transitions [EP]

SBTRKT
Transitions [EP]
5 May 2014
Young Turks

3 stars out of 5

 

London’s Aaron Jerome records and remixes under the name SBTRKT. The new Transitions EP is a compilation of three 12” records, titled Transitions I, II, and III (creative, right?). Presumably released as a stop-gap between 2011’s SBTRKT and a second, forthcoming LP, Transitions really doesn’t do much to whet the appetite for new material.

“Hold the Line,” one of the more interesting tracks here, sounds like mid-‘90s Autechre, full of glitchy drum programming and melancholy keyboard sounds. “Resolute” is a good approximation of Mouse on Mars from the same era, laden with ring modulated percussion and a relatively sunny melody. “Stifle” has its interesting textures, but again, like the rest of the tracks here, seems more like a half-realized mistake than as a fully-explored composition.

While these short-lived highlights (none of the tracks are longer than four and a half minutes) are nice while they last, they seem like orphans in a room full of other orphans—or perhaps a transition home where no one can truly be at home. Nothing really belongs here, which makes sense if these are cast-offs from a future album, but it doesn’t make for any sort of sustained listening enjoyment.

reviewed by Richard Krueger