Anticipation crackles for tonight’s debut live performance from Sault, the purposefully enigmatic collective centred around producer Dean Josiah Cover, AKA Inflo. Their discography – 11 albums in four years, five arriving in a single data dump a year ago – encompasses the kaleidoscope of Black music history, growing ever more spiritual and exploratory. Exactly which incarnation of Sault will materialise tonight: the sinewy garage-funk unit? The street soul artisans? The composers of diaphanous choral symphonies?
The answer is: all of them, as confirmed by numerous stages of varying size and purpose around Drumsheds’ main hall, which is accessed only after walking through an open fridge that leads into a winding installation composed of grimy tunnels and mirrored gardens. Any disorientation is intentional – Sault intend you take them on their terms, opening the set with an electrifying tribal drum solo that lasts over 20 minutes.
SO the #SAULT surprise gig last night certainly delivered on the SURPRISE element....
— Elizabeth Holloway (@LizzeeRascal) December 15, 2023
For a start, this is what you went into... Drumsheds had been transformed into a complete immersive world........ pic.twitter.com/Cp1VOsHvST
The various stages field string sections and harpists, banks of choristers and teams of dancers whose artful choreography and striking costuming serve as our eyes’ primary focus. Clad in ninja garb, the band play in the shadows or within a frosted-glass terrarium, the vocalists – including Cleo Sol and Little Simz – silhouettes cast on curtains or singing from behind a spectrum of veils. Sault may finally be in the building, but their enigma remains intact.
All this mystery would be meaningless were the music not so consistently remarkable. Their eclecticism is dazzling but grounded in substance, their anthems aiming at the feet and the heart with equal accuracy: the choir-led symphonics of Time is Precious; Simz’ writhing, irresistible Fear No Man; the fearsomely in-the-pocket Warrior. Dancehall lament segues into kalimba reverie into qawwali song; the ecstatic house-y throb of I Just Want to Dance is engulfed by a marching drumline; a silhouetted Michael Kiwanuka croons a tear-stained and beautiful Colourblind.
It was Kendrick at Glastonbury and Punchdrunk theatre and Block 9 and the London 2012 opening ceremony and Stop Making Sense and American Utopia and it was also like nothing you’ve ever seen. @saultglobal you pulled off something extraordinary pic.twitter.com/bAYbNlbaik
— Jon Hillcock (@jonhillcock) December 15, 2023
It’s a lot. Given the buzz that’s built around Sault these last four years – and the £100 ticket price – it had to be. But this immersive, eclectic, astonishing three hours posit Cover and collaborators as time-travellers traversing Afro-legacy and Afro-future, masked visionaries cycling between humility and audacity. It’s enough to suggest there’s absolutely nothing they can’t do.
