Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Let’s Turn It Into Sound

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has set her mind to seeking a physical response to our modern quandaries. She once aimed to create solace, a meditative state. Perhaps the permacrisis has caused her approach to become misshapen in ways mimicked by the figures populating the visuals accompanying her new album Let’s Turn It Into Sound – this is a kind of polyrhythmically controlled mania. 

Closer to instigating dancefloor acrobatics than blissed out reverie, it’s a chewed up laminated dough of synthesizer sounds resembling the dramatic stomps of Anna Meredith. The back half of Pivot Signal marches like a brass band possessed. Processed vocals give life to titles that seem to have come from a knackered chatbot that’s been installed on a spaceship’s mainframe. Is it Me or is it You? plays the radio station concept album trick, but instead of the intermittent hiss, there's an extraterrestrial hacking the waveforms. Smith’s music is expected to move to the beat of yogic breathing, but nothing here is relaxed or relaxing.

Kinetic and unpredictable, whatever has instigated such an about turn, this idea-packed collection provides an evolution from the ambient, new age music Smith has become known for.

Listen to: Locate, Check Your Translation, Pivot Signal