苏尔特 – 5 (2019)
作者：拉菲·默瑟
Some albums arrive with fanfare, others slip in through the side door.
5, the debut album from the enigmatic UK collective SAULT, arrived in 2019 almost without warning, no biographies, no press campaign, no faces on the cover. Just a stark black sleeve with the number five in white.
What it contained was a revelation. Funk, soul, Afrobeat, R&B, dub, and post-punk all swirled together into something lean, sharp, and urgent. It sounded like a band you’d known forever and one you had never heard before, both at the same time.
The mystery was part of the appeal, but the music was more than enough. SAULT chose anonymity as an aesthetic, not a gimmick. The project is thought to be helmed by producer Dean “Inflo” Josiah Cover, alongside Cleo Sol and a shifting cast of collaborators. They refused interviews, rarely performed live, and yet their music spread quickly through word of mouth. In an era saturated with streaming singles and overexposure, SAULT offered scarcity. You either listened closely or you missed it.
What strikes you immediately about 5 is the rhythm. The album opens with “Up All Night,” a track that seems built for a basement bar: crisp drums, nimble bass, vocals that slink more than soar.
The production is skeletal but irresistible, every element carrying weight, nothing wasted. “Don’t Waste My Time” takes the same ethic further, a funk cut so tight it feels like air has been vacuum-sealed around the groove. These tracks don’t sprawl; they strike.
But there is space here, too. “Masterpiece” opens the floor to soul and gospel lineage, vocals soaring over warm chords. “We Are the Sun” shifts the mood again, layering percussion into a communal chant, Afrobeat in its pulse but distinctly modern in its production. “Why Don’t You” folds reggae inflections into the mix. The throughline is rhythm, but the palette is expansive. SAULT make music that knows its ancestors but refuses to be boxed by them.
What makes 5 remarkable is its balance between urgency and patience. Tracks rarely pass the three-minute mark, yet they feel whole. The band cut songs to the bone, delivering just what is needed and then moving on. This brevity gives the record an unusual energy. You’re always leaning forward, always attentive, because nothing overstays its welcome. And yet the album, when played in sequence, feels expansive. It sketches a whole world in 35 minutes.
On a hi-fi system, the production rewards attention. Bass is warm and rounded, drums punch without splash, vocals sit dry and close in the mix. It feels intimate, almost conspiratorial, like someone has leaned across the table to tell you something urgent. In a listening bar, this intimacy transforms into collective experience. Heads nod, feet tap, conversations ride the groove. The room leans into the pulse.
For me, what makes 5 essential is its sense of honesty. There is no posturing, no excess, no polish for polish’s sake. It is raw but precise, the sound of musicians who know exactly what they want a track to do. It carries the spirit of seventies funk collectives, but it belongs to now. In a shelf that holds Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Fela Kuti, and Donald Byrd, SAULT feel like their natural heirs: artists who use groove not just for pleasure, but for statement, for connection, for survival.
The backstory deepens the resonance. Inflo would later produce for Michael Kiwanuka, Little Simz, and Adele, but here, with SAULT, he forged a different path: independent, mysterious, uncompromising. Cleo Sol’s vocals — soft but strong, casual but commanding — became the voice of the project, threading intimacy through the grooves. Together, they built not just songs, but a myth. In a cultural moment where everything was overshared, 5 felt like resistance.
Play it in your home listening bar and the effect is immediate. The drums shape the room, the bass grounds it, the voices float just above eye level. It is music that transforms domestic space into social space, private space into dancefloor. And when “B.A.B.E.” rolls in with its swaggering beat and chant-like vocal, you feel not just entertained but included. SAULT have always made music that feels communal. 5 is where that begins.
Why does it endure? Because it reminds us that music doesn’t need spectacle to matter. It needs pulse, honesty, and craft. Because it takes funk and soul, genres often weighed down by nostalgia, and makes them immediate again. Because it proves that mystery can be liberating, that you don’t need to know everything to feel everything. 5 is not just an album. It is a proposition: that music can be direct, collective, and still profoundly deep.
拉菲·默瑟（Rafi Mercer）致力于书写那些音乐举足轻重的空间。如欲阅读更多《Tracks & Tales》的精彩内容，请订阅，或点击此处阅读更多。
