{"id":3617,"date":"2012-01-24T09:53:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2012-01-24T09:53:14","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T15:53:14","slug":"saul-williams-volcanic-sunlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/01\/24\/saul-williams-volcanic-sunlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Saul Williams \u2013 Volcanic Sunlight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3618\" href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2012\/01\/24\/saul-williams-%e2%80%93-volcanic-sunlight\/vs_cover_saul_300\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3618\" title=\"vs_cover_saul_300\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/vs_cover_saul_300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><span id=\"internal-source-marker_0.8006797614507377\"><br \/>\nI wonder if Saul Williams is trying to be subversive with his latest album, <em>Volcanic Sunlight<\/em>.<!--more--> Williams has always incorporated elements of rock into his work, but this piece moves into a terrain more seemingly influenced by mainstream dance pop music (the synth stabs in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FDSXhQZYzAQ\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cLook to the Sun\u201d<\/a> emphasize this). I have to wonder if this is subversion of the existing pop landscape as Williams sees it, because he seems like a smart guy and is a great poet. The highlight of the album is the first fifteen or so seconds which is just Williams speaking without music. Overall though, the writing lacks the urgency of other releases \u2013 there\u2019s no call to arms here as in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l1llNYAlYrc\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cList of Demands.\u201d<\/a> The dance influence, lack of urgent lyrics, coupled with extraordinarily flat production (I\u2019d love to blame someone for this but my promo copy doesn\u2019t name a producer nor does any information I can find online) all lead me to wonder if this is Williams\u2019 criticism of the current pop landscape. Or maybe, after a run of a couple great albums, this is simply a misstep. \u00a0Critical though it may be, if it takes me 11 tracks to get to something that I\u2019d like to listen to more than once (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ktqzk_o1P9w\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cFall Up\u201d<\/a>), you have a problem. (Pirates Blend, <a href=\"http:\/\/piratesblend.com\" target=\"_blank\">piratesblend.com<\/a>) <strong>Devin King<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wonder if Saul Williams is trying to be subversive with his latest album, Volcanic Sunlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[229,747,833],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dance","tag-pop","tag-saul-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}