Just hours after they first teased the project, Sault have released their sixth studio album, ‘Air’.
Yesterday (April 14), the mysterious neo-soul troupe – led by singers Kid Sister and Cleo Soul, alongside producer and instrumentalist Inflo – wiped their Instagram and shared a series of teasers for new material.
The string of posts began with the new album’s cover art – comprising the word “Air”, spelt out in matchsticks on a pure black background, similar to the covers for previous records ‘5’, ‘7’ and ‘Nine’ – followed by snippets of five of the album’s seven tracks. Take a look at the cover art for ‘Air’ below, then stream the album in full:
Sault took a similar approach for the new album’s predecessor, ‘Nine’, which was first mentioned in an Instagram post last June, and then released in full a few weeks later (on June 25). In a four-star review of that album, NME’s Ben Jolley said: “Once again, Sault demonstrate the power of words and just how impactful music can be. It’s impossible not to feel affected by the stories being told.”
Sault were nominated for the 2021 Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album, ‘Untitled (Rise)’. They lost out to Arlo Parks’ acclaimed debut ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’.
With four nods, Sault member Inflo – real name Dean Josiah Cover – is the most-nominated artist at this year’s Ivor Novello awards. He’s up for the Best Album award for his work on Sault’s ‘Nine’, as well as ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’ by Little Simz and ‘Mother’ by Cleo Sol. He’s also nominated for Best Contemporary Song for his work on ‘I Love You, I Hate You’ by Little Simz.
Speaking about her working relationship with Inflo to NME, Little Simz said that their “chemistry is just unmatched”.
“He trusts my ear and I trust his; we push each other,” Simz explained. “We’re also both fearless where there is no boundary or no limit of what we can try in the studio. There’s just the freedom to create and if it works, sick, but I think having the space to try new things is what I love most about working with ‘Flo.”