SBTRKT's 2011 self-titled debut was a welcome breakthrough. In a year when bass music was getting further acquainted with the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, SBTRKT found a way to streamline producer Aaron Jerome's clean, rhythmically intricate yet suitably catchy style into a sound that felt distinctly aboveground. And while guest spots from singers like Jessie Ware and Little Dragon's Yukimi Nagano took SBTRKT's compatibility with R&B and indie pop to its logical conclusion, it was the yearning, gentle murmuring of regular collaborator Sampha that proved to be the most characteristic and distinct voice on the record.
In the following year, SBTRKT took his show on the road, and a real sense of showmanship-- elaborate masks, quick shifts from programmed to live percussion, Sampha's presence as a singer and multi-instrumentalist-- made those concerts a sensory-overload experience. That energy's visually borne out in the two videos that come with the LP/DVD version of Live, an album culled from a pair of shows recorded at London venue Shepherds Bush Empire last October. But unfortunately those video excerpts are the closest this set comes to doing justice to what seems like it could've been an exciting series of shows. Because if there's one thing that threatens to ruin the atmosphere of a really tight performance like this, it's a foggy recording, mixing, or mastering job that fails to capture the dynamic pop of SBTRKT's drums, whether programmed or behind the kit.
It's not quite bootleg cameraphone-recording quality, but from the outset of "Surely" it's clear something's up-- what should be crisp, resonant snares sound like cardboard, kicks feel mushy, and hi-hats have the weak timbre of rattling chain link fences. It's a shame, because this version takes what was a fairly forgettable bonus 7" from the LP version of SBTRKT and ups its tempo, using it as a good base to rhythmically improvise some glitchy freeform beats and turning an afterthought into an anthem. Sampha's voice suffers, too-- its strength is in his subtlety, and while he sounds powerful over minimal accompaniment, a lot of nuance is lost when he sings over heavy instrumentation. What should be the most emotional moments on "Never Never" and "Trials of the Past" give the unfair illusion that he's short of breath and trying to catch up.
Everything else about Live seems almost secondary to the cruddy sound quality, but it'd be a shame to detract from what SBTRKT was going for here. The addition of London's Heritage Orchestra on tracks like "Trials of the Past" and "Go Bang" isn't your typical class-up-the-joint schmaltz move; the strings really do wring out some additional emotional highs. The version of "Wildfire" is deliriously inspired, as SBTRKT takes Nagano's voice and chops it up into a stammering percussive riff, extending one of his signature singles into a high-energy sprawl. And one previously unheard track, the surprisingly techno-indebted "Migration" (a segue out of SBTRKT highlight "Hold On"), definitely gives followup-hungry fans something more to look forward to for the next release. This concert album's heart is in the right place. It's too bad that the mics weren't.
