SBTRKT announces new album, ‘The Rat Road’, shares single: Listen
'Waiting' featuring Teezo Touchdown is taken from the producer's long-awaited third album
SBTRKT has announced his long-awaited third album, 'The Rat Road'.
Off the back of drip-feeding his first new music in six years in 2022 – the singles 'Ghost' and 'Forward', both featuring vocalist Leilah, as well as 'Bodmin Moor' and 'Miss The Days' – the producer, aka Aaron Jerome, will release the album on 5th May.
'The Rat Road' will be Jerome's first full-length release under the SBTRKT moniker since his 2016 non-album compilation of songs, 'Save Yourself'. Following the release of his self-titled debut album in 2011, he went on to release 'Wonder Where We Land' via Young, fka Young Turks, in 2014.
Speaking about 'The Rat Road,' as well as new single 'Waiting' featuring rapper and producer Teezo Touchdown, Jerome said: “This album has been my most sonically ambitious record to create - following my own musical path - which isn’t based on others’ perceptions of what SBTRKT should be. ‘The Rat Road’ title is a play on the concept of ‘the rat race’."
"It’s partly based on my own challenging experiences within the music industry and life generally - though I realised the idea is not isolated from a much wider feeling of exhaustion - definitely true here in the UK with little sense of respite from ever-increasing costs/decreasing opportunity/and a bold divide and conquer mentality. There is the juxtaposition in the record between determination and hopelessness."
He added: "I’m always listening to and looking out for new music and came across a song of Teezo’s ‘I’m Just a Fan’ – in Oct '21 – by serendipity. He was heading to London the next week so we connected in person. In some ways - although personal to Teezo too - it perfectly vocalised everything I had been going through.'
"It therefore felt like the most obvious song to then lead into my album with. Musically it's an expansion on my previous records, with a purposefully wider and more layered sound. All instruments on this song and the album played, recorded, produced and mixed by me.”
Pre-order 'The Rat Road' and watch the video for 'Waiting' featuring Teezo Touchdown below.
