SBTRKT - Voices in My Head (ft. A$AP Ferg)

If there’s one running concept that sustains through SBTRKT’s perfect patchwork of a new album, it’s the idea that things aren’t permanent. ‘Wonder Where We Land’ is a record that wraps itself up in the present day. If times are hard, they might get better, it says. And sometimes the situation itself feels like it’s gone miles ahead of the character within. The deepest and darkest of these arrives at the end of the record. A$AP Ferg is mid-drugs binge, just about gaining control of his conscience. “Feel my heart beating,” he begins, before grasping the odd dose of reality and trying to regain a balance. “Don’t wanna be caught like Kurt Cobain / My mind’s a Porsche, switching lanes.” This maddening spiralling process is backed by jaw-breaking drum parts from Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa. Notes shift out of place, almost like a removal man’s picked up a grand piano only to see it career back down to the floor.

It’s easy to ignore the message behind SBTRKT’s music, and there’s an option to do so if revelry’s first on the agenda. But this one cuts deep. It’s a terrifying endpoint to a record that rarely reaches positive conclusions.