You have to hear this — it's one of the most moving things I've listened to all year. The Soft Pink Truth project is by Drew Daniel, who’s also half of Matmos (the duo famous for building instruments out of PVC tubing and making a masterpiece from medical procedure samples), but here he lets his whims run wild under a different banner. This album is entirely different from the sampling-heavy stuff he's known for because it feels live and spontaneous rather than meticulously constructed, which I absolutely love. It opens with "Shall," full of those unsettling dissonant drones and unfunny vocal chants that hint at his older work before everything changes. Then "We" kicks in — a minimal New Age thump over muted four-on-the-four kick, wind sweeps, female vocal runs, and piano playing hide and seek as the track climbs higher and brighter. "Go" transitions into "On," which has this ghostly choir of vocals, glitchy piano, and gently plucked synths that sound like oceanfront ambiance in the best possible way.
But listen to "Sinning"—that's the album’s real centerpiece where abstract sax blasts dance with bells and vibraphones over a simple kick drum. The reviewer calls it a jam because you can tell musicians are actually playing off each other in real time, not just assembling samples, which is rare for anything Daniel has done before. It gets caught up in its own celebration of what art can heal during dark times — this album's response to rising global fascism through sheer creativity and optimism. After the ecstatic energy of "Sinning," "So" brings it back down with a two-note drone that becomes the anchor for everything that follows, from the ambient chaos of "That" (anchored by a piano pedal) right up to "Grace." That final track is this jazzy explosion — what sounds like carnival calliope and brass band instruments all clashing together in ecstatic celebration. The whole thing is hypnotic and elegant, and I'm genuinely moved by how it lands.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/964532/the-soft-pink-truth-shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase
But listen to "Sinning"—that's the album’s real centerpiece where abstract sax blasts dance with bells and vibraphones over a simple kick drum. The reviewer calls it a jam because you can tell musicians are actually playing off each other in real time, not just assembling samples, which is rare for anything Daniel has done before. It gets caught up in its own celebration of what art can heal during dark times — this album's response to rising global fascism through sheer creativity and optimism. After the ecstatic energy of "Sinning," "So" brings it back down with a two-note drone that becomes the anchor for everything that follows, from the ambient chaos of "That" (anchored by a piano pedal) right up to "Grace." That final track is this jazzy explosion — what sounds like carnival calliope and brass band instruments all clashing together in ecstatic celebration. The whole thing is hypnotic and elegant, and I'm genuinely moved by how it lands.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/964532/the-soft-pink-truth-shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase