Vienna by way of Manchester artist, salute, announces their forthcoming album TRUE MAGIC due July 12th on Ninja Tune. The announcement is accompanied by their new single and visualiser “saving flowers,” a stunning collaboration with multi-hyphenated artist Rina Sawayama. salute’s forthcoming album also features Disclosure, Empress Of, Karma Kid, Sam Gellaitry, piri, Léa Sen, LEILAH and Nakamura Minami. 

As salute’s second offering of 2024, “saving flowers” is a sonic manifestation of an endless summer function. The single sets the tone for their upcoming project while also providing listeners with the perfect musical backdrop for a night full of promise. 

TRUE MAGIC sees salute embrace a more collaborative approach, renting a house in the countryside to work on the album with their peers. “I took a pop approach to the record,” says salute. “I went in quite blindly just with some loops and ideas but there’s much more of a focus on songwriting and collaboration on this album. In dance music there always seems to be this focus on doing everything yourself but I wanted to get a team around me to develop the ideas I had. One thing I’m really proud of is how organic the work with the collaborators is. I’ve managed to get such a breadth of amazing people on the record.”

Taking aesthetic and auditory inspiration from old Japanese car adverts, which salute spent hours trawling through YouTube archives to find, they developed a concept for the album of driving an old JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car in a race called TRUE MAGIC. “Watching old TV recordings my parents made on VHS led me to comfort watch old ad compilations on Youtube” they commented, “then eventually old car ads, and finally I stumbled upon old japanese car ads through a rabbit hole.” This highly visual concept helped propel the sonics of the album forward and give the album a sense of driving momentum. 

salute will be heading on tour this spring beginning with a performance at Four Tet & Friends Festival in NY on May 5th before heading on their full European run with stops through Manchester, London, Paris, Barcelona among many others.

The album announcement follows their first-ever nomination at the 2024 MOBO Awards for Best Electronic/Dance act after the release of Felix’ EP Shield, which received praise from the likes of The FADER who described the music as “dreamy” and Clash who proclaimed the project as, "Surging with Spring-like energy." Shield followed earlier singles “Joy” and “Therapy” as well as co-signs from artists including Four Tet, DJ Seinfeld, Floating Points, Mall Grab, Daphni, skrillex, Fred Again and more, which solidified them as a cult sensation and set the stage for a bigger album to come. 

salute was first initiated into the UK club scene at 18 after moving to Brighton and then Manchester. There, they were given real exposure to club culture, which beforehand, had only been limited to videos on YouTube and Boiler Room. From here they refined their signature sound, pulling from their newfound understanding of genres like grime, garage, and dubstep. 

salute has continued to build on their impressive live catalog, including a set at Coachella’s Do Lab stage, Boiler Room Melbourne (which has reached over one million views on Youtube) and four sets at Glastonbury (a BBC R1 Essential Mix live with Annie Mac & The Blessed Madonna) The Levels in Silver Hayes (b2b DJ Boring) & Stonebridge (b2b Pretty Girl) & Greenpeace Field). They made their debut in Asia to an incredible reception, selling out shows in Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo. The shows were b2b with Yung Singh and the Tokyo show saw Rina Sawayama show up as surprise guest when salute played album announce track “saving flowers” out to a crowd for the first time. salute has also recently performed with Disclosure in Colombia and Berlin, Mall Gab in London, Hudson Mohawke in LA and supported Jungle on their US tour. 

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