Listen to “Days Go By” below:

Rat Road will be SBTRKT’s third album and his first album since 2016’s Save Yourself. It’s set to release on the 5^th May and will include the artist’s past collaborators South London-born producer Sampha and the Swedish electronic band Little Dragon. “Days Go By” is the third single to be released from Rat Road with the mellow lead single “FORWARD” dropping last December followed by the psychedelic R&B track “WAITING” featuring the rapper Teezo Touchdown (who previously supported Tyler, the Creator, Kali Uchis, and Vince Staples on tour).

“As humans, our moods are changeable. We are still able to laugh amidst this collective anxiety”, said the artist in a press release. He continued to say that his new album will explore the root of this collective anxiety: “I’m tapping into how we feel about our role in climate change and the future, the politics of Britain, but also the music industry. You need all your wits about you to not get screwed over.”

The man behind SBTRKT is Aaron Jerome from Cambridgeshire. He first received recognition in 2009 when his track “Nervous” became a radio hit and has now remixed songs for M.I.A, Drake, Radiohead, Mark Ronson, Basement Jaxx, Little Dragon, and Underworld.

Jerome is reconstructing his image for Rat Road abandoning the mask he is now known for. Originally the artist used the mask to help maintain anonymity so his listeners could focus on his music rather than his identity. “A lot of my prior press coverage was as a masked, elusive character,” explained SBTRKT in the press release. “My storyline became attached to the mask. A lot has been projected onto or written for me, diluting what I actually created and then, that being attributed to others around me.”

SBTRKT will be headlining Outernet in London on the 25^th following the release of Rat Road. It will be his first headline show of 2023. Tickets go on sale at 10 am BST on the 12^th April. He will also be appearing at Field Day Festival in London this summer. For tickets see here.

See below for the complete list of SBTRKT’s UK dates:

25/05/23 – Outernet – London
19/08 – Field Day Festival – London

SBTRKT ( real name Aaron Jerome) produced and mixed the new track but the task of mastering was taken up by Matt Colton (who has rubbed elbows with the likes of; Coldplay, Muse, James Blake and Geroge Michael among many others). With a subtle nod to one of SBTRKT’s favourite mixes by the renowned DJ LTJ Bukem, the breakneck nature of the song’s rhythms causes your pulse to pop and skip along for the ride. With fantastic elements of sound design and sampling, we can see SBTRKT is back in business in a big way. Have a listen to “Bodmin Moor” in the video down below:

The accompanying video is an intense saga that was directed by the Rest, who have formerly worked with names like Skepta, Slowthai, A$AP Rocky, James Blake, Beabadoobie and more. Starring Chaneil Kular as a desperate art thief in a frenetic series of bizarre encounters. The visuals capture the essence of this song’s mood perfectly.  SBTRKT explained; “The video for Bodmin Moor represents my journey through the music business…and figuring out how to own my art.”

Discussing the inception of the song, SBTRKT explained; “Made the beginnings of ‘Bodmin Moor’ around 2016. It’s always amused me through the last few years the reaction I get when I play it to other artists in the studio – whose ears prick up like ‘what’s this?!’ artists I just didn’t think would be into it…!”

He later added; “The breakdown pays tribute to one of my fave LTJ Bukem remixes in the mid-90s. the spotters will know! The title references a place in the south west of the UK called Bodmin Moor where in the late 70s there were sightings of a large cat… known as the ‘Beast of Bodmin Moor’ that was hunted… it was the seed for the creature on my second album cover… it represents my existing art.”

This latest piece is hopefully the first in a new wave of work for SBTRKT who claims he is; “Just Getting Started”.

While it has been a good while since our last new SBTRKT music – and even longer since Wonder Where We Land, which is considered his last actual album and not just a collection of offcuts – but that doesn’t mean that the announcement has come out of nowhere. Huxley, another artist floating around the same circles, posted on his Twitter on June 2^nd saying, “what happened to sbtrkt man”, SBTRKT himself quickly responded with a mysterious link – https://thevanishingpost.com. The website probably raised more questions than it actually answered. Clippings of old newspapers, blurry black and white photos of animals, and medieval tapestries all revolving around the existence of some sort of beast. The bottom of the page shows a link to the same short animation that was publicly released today. All very mysterious.

But now, we have official information, not just general ramblings of SBTRKT finally resurfacing. It’s not much but it is something. We know that there’s music, and it’s probably called BODMIN MOOR. Which fits with the animalistic theme from the Vanishing Post website. The legend of the beast of Bodmin Moor is one that has a lot of overlap with SBTRKT in terms of imagery and atmosphere, it almost makes sense.

Last year, when posting about the 10^th anniversary of his, now classic, self-titled debut, Jerome went on to comment about the future of the project. “Maybe one day I will play some of the unreleased off-cuts from the album and also perform it as one record on its own! I guess more importantly – I’ve been writing new music for quite a while… it’s been too long but good shit takes time and I can’t wait to share it with you.”

It’s true, we don’t actually have any confirmed information just yet, but if the industry and general hype-building as a whole is anything to go by… I reckon we’ll have our answers in less than a week. Whether it’s an album, a tour, or something else completely different – I don’t know a soundtrack to a movie(?) – we’ll know soon enough. The wheels are in motion.

The description on Soundcloud reads: “was looking through old hard drive files and found this unreleased remix dub i made for XL back in 2008.” And the song plays like buried treasure too – A bass heavy rendering of what Adele would sound like at a late night cocktail bar in Shoreditch.

If you want a reminder of what music in Britain sounded like in 2008 – when Adele’s debut 19 was setting the country alight, and Post-Dubstep was freshly coined and still enamored with those fuzzy synth pads – then you should probably check out the track below:

And if you’re in need of even more nostalgia then here’s the video for the original ‘Chasing Pavements':