#21 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Pale Jay

January 11, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Bewilderment by Pale Jay

Soul music has had its ups and downs here on the Top 31. From Seattle’s own Pickwick hitting #1 back in 2011, to Leon Bridges and St. Paul & the Broken Bones, to the goddess herself, Sharon Jones in 2017 (RIP), the genre remains alive and well. Enter Pale Jay, a newcomer to the field, with his debut album, Bewilderment. With a voice like Lee Fields or Curtis Mayfield, and easy-living music evocative of Khruangbin, Pale Jay will have you leaning back in your chair and blissfully dreaming about easy breezy summer days.

There’s not much information out there about Pale Jay. He has no wikipedia page, he plays anonymously, and his web presence is boiled down to a single Bandcamp page. He does maintain an active Instagram account, a la SAULT or Banksy. The music on his page only goes back to his first EP, back in October 2021. And aside from a couple singles, this short-but-sweet debut album (with eight songs and coming in at just 24 minutes) is all we get of him. I did find a site reviewing this album who claims Pale Jay was trained as a jazz vocalist and pianist and calls southern California home.

There have been a few artists over the years here on the Top 31 who have chosen to keep their identity a mystery. Some choose to wear obfuscating makeup, such as The Knife or Fever Ray (2009 and 2017). Others choose to stay out of videos and remain unnamed, like Sault (2019, 2020, 2021, and who could forget their SEVEN albums that were #1 collectively just last year). Or there’s artists like Orville Peck, who have worn a mask in public for their entire musical career, and have never dropped character when the public is watching or listening.

Pale Jay fits into the Peck line of anonymity. But whereas Orville Peck has been around long enough that people have been able to put together who his true identity is (thanks to matching up the tattoos he wears all over his body), Pale Jay remains entirely anonymous for the time being. He wears a red balaclava in public (reminiscent of Pussy Riot, who choose to remain relatively anonymous for fear of retribution from the Russian Government), along with a white bucket hat with a red plastic brim. Those combined generally with an all-white turtleneck and white pants, he is effectively covered from head to toe aside from his (yes, pale-skinned) hands, ankles, lips, eyes, and sometimes forearms. (It’s only a matter of time before someone identifies him by the bird tattoo on his left inner elbow.)

You can watch videos Pale Jay has created for each song on the album, each featuring the artist in his signature costume, mostly walking / biking / boating in one long take to each of these songs.

There’s also this video for a beautiful acoustic rendition of “By The Lake” that will set aside any worries that Pale Jay is unable to master that gorgeous falsetto in a live setting. I chose the featured video above only because it has him driving while lip syncing, with others blissfully trusting their lives to the masked man behind the wheel.

Put Bewilderment on, right now. It’s a short, 24 minute commitment, and you won’t be disappointed. I guarantee it.

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#1 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — SAULT

January 31, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Air, 11, AIIR, X (Angel) EP, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, and Untitled (God) by SAULT

Yes, my #1 album of 2022 is actually six albums and an EP. It’s my Top 31 and I do what I want. But also, if you heard any or all of these albums, you’d understand why I can’t pick just one¹.

SAULT are an enigma. They are a musical collective, made up of an unknown number of people, led by who smart people are 99% sure is producer Dean Josiah Cover, professionally known as Inflo, most famous for working with Bacon Review alum Michael Kiwanuka (#10 in 2019) and British rapper Little Simz². Nobody in the band has given an interview, presented a photo of themselves as part of SAULT, or created a single music video. They are nowhere, the anti-Beyoncé, an R&B, hip hop, house, and disco-fueled puzzle, and these 6.5 albums collectively represent the best the music industry had to offer in 2022.

Between 2019 and prior to 2022, SAULT had released five albums. (Their first two albums, 5 and 7 were jointly #7 in 2019. Their third and fourth albums, Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) were jointly #5 in 2020. NINE was #26 in 2021, and if you recall, this album was only available for download / streaming for 99 days, and it is now frustratingly unavailable everywhere.) In April of 2022, the collective surprised the world by releasing a modern classical album, devoid of any vocals, called Air. On October 10, they put out an EP called _X_ that had a lone, 10-minute track on it. And then, on October 31, they posted this on Twitter and Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SAULT (@saultglobal)

The next day, they provided a link to a password-protected WeTransfer page that allowed anyone who accessed it a free, high-quality download of five brand new albums, a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes of bliss.

I haven’t loved everything SAULT has created. Air, their all-orchestral classical album from early in 2022, was so jarring and out of left field, I couldn’t ever connect to it. But when they released “Angel,” the lone, 10-minute song on the _X_ EP, (and featured in the audio YouTube link above), I’d found a new obsession. It is their best track, period. It has three parts to it, starts off in reggae, leads through a gospel choral arrangement, and ends in a gentle acoustic realm. It is pure magic.

The five albums released on November 1 are strewn with fantastic, genre-spanning music. My favorites are “Morning Sun” and “Together” from 11; “The Return” and “Above the Sky” from Today & Tomorrow; “The Lords With Me” and “God Is In Control” from Earth; the disco-tinged “Faith” from Untitled (God). They did claim these five albums were “an offering to god,” and yes there’s a lot of theology within, but music is my church of choice, and this is the most eclectic religion you’ll ever encounter.

SAULT’s mystery may soon be vanquished. On November 19, the collective posted to their Twitter and Instagram, asking “If we were to do a live show…………which songs would you want to hear?” Nothing more has come of the posts, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see SAULT show up on a festival lineup sometime this summer. Nobody has any idea what they’ll do on stage. Maybe they’ll pull a Daft Punk and hide their faces. Or maybe they’ll put up a scrim and perform behind it, broadcasting cartoon versions of themselves onto it, a la Gorillaz. Or maybe they’ll be the next holographic Tupac. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to find out.

SAULT’s full repertoire isn’t for everyone — I’d even make the case that the entirety of it is most definitely not for anyone. But there is something in here for each of us to love. The amount of music they produced in 2022 alone, and the musical span of what they released, is unmatched by any other artists. Seek out what you can, and then join me in the scavenger hunt for the rest. Who the hell knows where they’re going next.

^{1. Additionally, it’s become common practice around these parts to award an artist for every album they put out, collectively, that year.↩}
^{2. Little Simz released another Inflo-produced album, her third, titled No Thank You, on December 19, 2022. With Inflo the main person in SAULT, and Little Simz having appeared numerous times in across their albums (including the wonderful “Free” on Untitled (God)), I considered including that album as part of this #1 parade. ↩}

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2. RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé
3. This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby
4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#26 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Sault

January 06, 2022 by Royal Stuart

NINE by Sault

I’ve talked at length about the prolific output of the secretive British R&B collective known as Sault. Nine, their fifth album in just over two years, and fifth effort to appear on The Bacon Top 31 (_5_ and _7_ were at #7 in 2019, and Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) were at #5 in last year’s Top 31).

Go back and read those previous posts to learn more (or least as much as you can) about the band. NINE fits in very nicely with their previous works. The one twist with this album is that when it was released on June 25, the band announced that it would only be available for purchase, stream, or download for 99 days. On Oct 3, 2021, true to their word, the album disappeared. Hence the fan-made video shown above – there’s no longer any official way to listen to this album. If you don’t have it, well, you’ll just have to track it down illegally I guess.

Like the Sufjan and the Jurado albums that appeared earlier in the Top 31, this is the lowest point the band has appeared on the Top 31. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a trend of some kind – me not liking previously much-loved artists as much as I used to. It’s a thought that hadn’t occurred to me until just now, but I’ll keep thinking on it and see how the rest of the Top 31 plays out here in the bottom third before making any sweeping judgments of my changing musical tastes.

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27. Observatory by Aeon Station
28. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
29. A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine
30. Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan
31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications

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#5 on the 2020 Bacon Top 31 — Sault

January 27, 2021 by Royal Stuart

Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault

Much like Run The Jewels at #6, Sault produces music that simultaneously answers to and defines the zeitgeist. But where RTJ is in your face and in your feeds to the point where they’re hard to avoid, Sault takes a much more subtle approach. Like RTJ, the music they produce is rooted in the plight and rise, the pain and joy of Black people worldwide, but it’s not outwardly angry. Instead, theirs songs are built on disco, soul, and R&B. They make you want to groove, in a 70s Marvin Gaye / Fela Kuti way, but they lyrically keep you firmly planted in the present.

The first of this year’s two albums, Untitled (Black Is), was released on Juneteenth, in the thick of global Black Lives Matter protests spurred on by the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The second (and equally stellar) album, Untitled (Rise), came out three months later. They did the same thing in 2019, coming out of nowhere and releasing two earth shattering albums; 5 and 7 together appeared at #7 that year. That’s four amazing albums in 71 weeks. During a global pandemic and mass unrest at systemic racism and global warming. Just imagine what they could accomplish if we had had more quiet, complacent and complicit years. Personally, as difficult as it is to admit, I’d likely not have heard of Sault had the world not been boiling over due to the Trump kakistocracy. Or if I’d heard of them, I wouldn’t have latched onto them like I did in 2020. I once was blind, but now I see.

That said, you can’t really see Sault. The band is an enigma. Sure, they have Twitter and Facebook and Instagram feeds of their own, but they post to those only when a new album is released, in a very mechanical, unsocial way. And they certainly don’t respond to replies or comments. They don’t have a YouTube channel (the video above, and frankly all their videos, even the audio-only videos, appear to be created by fans). They’ve never toured. You won’t find them speaking out in front of cameras, or backing political candidates in overt ways. You won’t find them at all. What little information we do know about them has been dug up by über-music nerds at a handful of publications and has never been confirmed by the band.

Sault is likely made up of four main contributors: London-based producer Dean Josiah "Inflo" Cover (who also produced Michael Kiwanuka and Jungle albums that have appeared on the Top 31 in past years), keyboardist and co-writer Kadeem Clarke, London-based soul singer Cleopatra "Cleo Sol" Nikolic, and Chicago hip-hop artist Melisa “Kid Sister” Young. Michael Kiwanuka makes an appearance on (Black Is) in the song “Bow” shown in the video above as well.

We are all lucky to have been gifted such a wealth of amazing music from one source. Maybe someday we’ll get to thank them in person, but for now we must actively listen, enjoy, and then act. Despite the difficulty we all encountered in 2020, my “suffering” doesn’t begin to equal the generations of difficulty those that aren’t white have faced. Now that the scales are tipping back in the right direction, it will be too easy to sink back into our separate and unequal lives. Bands like Run The Jewels and Sault are here to remind us to stay vigilant. How did we get so lucky?

p.s. A big thank you goes out to my friend Ryan, who has created a Spotify version of the Top 31 playlist as a companion to my Apple Music playlist. On top of that, he’s gone so far as to create a “Singles” playlist, where he’s pulled one song from each album. In his words:

“The idea is that I want Royal Radio, I want the 2020 Top 31 countdown show you would air on KEXP if you had the opportunity.”

Thank you so much, Ryan. I’m elated that you’ve done this. Spotify users rejoice! And for the other readers out there who may not know, Ryan is 100% the reason I started the Top 31 back in 2009. Prior to my countdown, Ryan was doing his own annual musical advent calendar. When he pulled the plug after having created it for a few years, I decided to pick up the reins (with his blessing). We should all be thanking Ryan. Maybe this will be the start of a bigger collaboration in years to come.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

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#7 on the 2019 Bacon Top 31 — Sault

January 25, 2020 by Royal Stuart

5 + 7 by Sault

Very little is known about Sault and the two amazing albums they released in 2019, 5 in April and 7 in September. The “band” doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, which seems impossible here in 2020. What I can tell you is that these two albums are amazing, and you should drop everything to listen to them right now. I suspect for most people reading this (which is not very many of people, admittedly) this will likely be your first exposure to the band, and that is exactly why I create the Top 31 every year. I love turning people onto new music.

I’ve been able to piece a bit together about Sault from various other sources. There’s an article in The Guardian that tells me that most likely Sault is made up of at least three core individuals: Dean Josiah Cover (aka Inflo, who teamed up with Danger Mouse to produce Michael Kiwanuka’s self titled album listed at #10 this year); British soul singer Cleo Sol as one of the vocalists; and Chicago-based rapper Kid Sister as another. But these are all just educated guesses.

These albums appear here due to what I call the “KEXP influence.” If you’re unaware, KEXP is the best radio station on the planet, they’re based right here in Seattle, and they play stellar music 24/7. Sault got lots of airplay this year on the station, so much so that John “in the Morning” Richards, the weekday morning DJ and associate music director at the station, ranked 5 his #1 album of the year.

These albums blend soul, funk, psychedelic and pop hooks in such a way that you can’t help but move in your seat. At times, I can hear a tUnE-yArDs influence. At others, like in the song “Something’s in the Air” above, I hear hints of Lemon Jelly. Each song packs a punch, so I recommend listening all the way through both albums at your next available moment. Hopefully we’ll learn more about the band soon. I do admire their ability to remain anonymous, as it’s something that seems nearly impossible to do in today’s day and age. They’ve cracked the code, and somehow released two phenomenal albums without giving anything up about themselves. I can’t wait for the potential 9, 11, and 13 to follow.

Lastly — I’m sorry for the non-video video. Unfortunately, the “band” hasn’t put out any real music videos. C’est la vie.

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8. Giants of All Sizes by Elbow
9. i,i by Bon Iver
10. Kiwanuka by Michael Kiwanuka
11. The Destroyer (Parts 1 + 2) by TR/ST
12. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish
13. Cheap Queen by King Princess
14. Anima by Thom Yorke
15. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 + 2 by Foals
16. Gallipoli by Beirut
17. My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird
18. Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa
19. Designer by Aldous Harding
20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
30. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights by The New Pornographers
31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

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