salute – TRUE MAGIC

One of rock’s age-old tropes is ‘getting it together in the country’; in essence, it’s about swapping electric instruments for acoustic, and tapping into the energies of the land. ‘TRUE MAGIC’ borrows some of the methodologies, but in true salute style the results are completely different – largely sculpted in a house in the countryside, it’s colourful, buoyant, and electrifying.

The producer’s first album since ‘Condition’ in 2019, ‘TRUE MAGIC’ is an outward-looking, celebratory affair, blending salute’s painterly abilities with a glittering array of collaborations. Citing a desire for “a more pop approach”, they have retained their thirst for club (and club-adjacent flavours). There’s an innate physicality to ‘maybe it’s u’ for example, a glowing collab with pan-genre Scottish production talent Sam Gellaitry. As scintillating as ‘system’ may be, Empress Of’s vocals would be nothing without the billowing house textures underneath.

Broad and eclectic, but also curiously unified, ‘TRUE MAGIC’ is threaded together by salute’s production impulses. Forever absorbing different studio tropes, the results bubble with a vivacious energy all of their own. ‘lift off’ is a Disclosure-bolstered ripper, while the deliriously infectious ‘saving flowers’ couples salute’s boundary-eschewing approach with fellow multi-hyphenate Rina Sawayama.

It’s not all big-name collaborations, however. ‘system’ finds salute going it alone, and there’s a real thrill to those singular moments – ‘move faster…’ is another – when it’s simply the producer working with introspective alacrity. Closing with back-to-back LEILAH cuts – ‘perfect’ and ‘drive’ – salute hones in on what the record does best: future-facing electronics tethered to glorious alt-pop vocals. 

Curiously, despite its house-in-the-countryside origins, ‘TRUE MAGIC’ refuses to settle in one place. Ignoring boundaries and blending oppositional flavours, salute’s escape to the country provides points of connection that ignite into some of their best work to date. 

8/10

Words: Robin Murray