There’s a kind of shocking tragedy to the music of SBTRKT, which you may already know is the triumphant creation of producer Aaron Jerome and a host of soulful guesting singers.
On ‘Hold On’, Jerome’s favourite collaborator and live partner Sampha pines, “You’re giving me the coldest stare/ Like you don’t even know I’m here”, over a mid-tempo garage beat. On ‘Right Thing To Do’, Jessie Ware betrays a dub breakdown when she howls, “Such a hurricane, such a hurtin’ pain/ Trapped in my soul and I can’t explain.”
It’s the music you might want to listen to if you found yourself weeping on a dancefloor, suddenly struck by an existential crisis, but still not quite willing to give up the beat. If James Blake, Jeff Buckley or Billie Holiday made groove-led synth pop, I can only imagine that it would have a similar effect.
In this rather comical context, it all makes sense, but really, it makes just as much sense tonight in the Academy, where 850 Bank Holiday-happy revellers have gathered (some of them brandishing actual glow sticks) to hear a live version of SBTRKT’s genre-defying self-titled debut album (an album which, by the way, features at least six tracks that are as good as, if not better than, ‘Good Life’ by Inner City).
To this party-hungry lot, throwing lines like, “I’ve never, never had so much to gain and threw it all away,” back at Jerome and Sampha as rapturously as if they were saying, “Loving you is easy ‘cos you’re beautiful,” the meaning could easily be lost, but the clean loops and slick samples allow the words to stand on equal footing with the beat.
For most people in the crowd, especially those under 21, thumping their fists while some heartbreaking sentiment drops out of their mouths is a whole new experience, and while it’s not the only good thing about tonight’s show, it’s a paradox that few electronic dance sets conjure up.
Of course, not all of SBTRKT’s songs are made for crying on dancefloors. Jerome and Sampha’s live show, delivered from behind a drum kit and at the mic respectively, is a heady mix of power percussion, theremin-widdling, agogo bell-pounding, soulful hollering and lots of fancy knob-turning. Sampha’s enthusiasm is infectious, while Jerome is far too busy with his multi-instrument hook laboratory for us to gauge quite how he’s feeling.
Tunes like ‘Pharaohs’ and ‘Wildfire’, both of which are performed with pre-recorded vocals, bring pure, undiluted exhilaration. Some of the record’s instrumental tracks are extended and fiddled about with at the expense of the energy of the set, but, for the most part, we’re getting a lot of terribly clever pop, delivered at wham-bam speed.
For those punters who are probably singing the wrong words, this is still a great show, a masterful electronic hootenanny with plenty of money moments. And the rest of us? Well, there’s no reason why can’t think while we boogie.