SAULT - 10

The hyper-prolific streak of the Sault, the London collective that's no longer quite so mysterious given that some of its regular collaborators have now been revealed (or acknowledged), shows no sign of slowing down. For "10", which is actually the band's twelfth album, alongside the inevitable producer Inflo, who also handles guitars, synths and backing tracks, there's the ever-enveloping voice of Cleo Sol, who on a few occasions hands over some vocal parts to Chronixx.

The real novelty this time around lies in the presence of Pino Palladino's full-bodied, pulsing bass, but even with names attached, Sault remains a project in which the individual musicians' egos are reduced to zero in service of a shared goal and vision: a band with no stars, no official faces to parade. Their tendency to shift between different styles and concepts from album to album leads them this time toward a mood firmly anchored in disco-funk sounds rooted in the 70s/80s, in particular the work of Quincy Jones, one of the producers who did the most to shape the sonic aesthetic of that era.

Everything is laid out precisely and unmistakably from the twin tracks "T.H." (standing for "The Healing" - every title on this album is an acronym) and "S.O.T.H." (standing for "Sounds Of The Healing"), placed at the two ends of the tracklist, which closely recall "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", the Michael Jackson superhit from "Off The Wall", 1979, the evergreen produced, fittingly, by Quincy Jones. Likewise, "R.L." (short for "Real Love") seems to be built along the same lines as "Rock With You", another Michael classic, of course.

"10" is a highly rhythmic and extremely refined work, in which funk, soul and r&b chase each other continuously, generating both contagious grooves ("W.A.L." = "We Are Living"), some decidedly Afrocentric ("P", "H.T.T.R.", extremely rich in percussion), and sexy, enveloping tracks, as in the case of "L.U." and the album's only true ballad, "S.I.T.L.", another nod to that typical late-1970s mood.

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24/08/2025