Let's Turn It Into Sound

It’s not just a mongrel mesh of genres. It’s stretching and cracking them into new shapes, creating something fresh, hyperactive, and utterly pop.

Smith's usual meditative, ambient-leaning approach is dialled back in favour of soaring wonky pop, ornate neoclasical and even quasi dancefloor movements. It gives rise to her most joyous music yet. [Oct 2022, p.87]

Smith’s music often sounds like a dozen mobile phone ringtones going off in a video games arcade while a west African drum circle rehearse on the street outside. Occasionally, this cacophony sounds sublime.

Kinetic and unpredictable, whatever has instigated such an about turn, this idea-packed collection provides an evolution from the ambient, new age music Smith has become known for.

With Let’s Turn It Into Sound, Smith turns her music upside down, shakes out her assumptions, and lets the pieces fall where they may, all in the interest of finding new connections between things that were never meant to go together. It’s a leap into the unknown, and her excitement is infectious.

With slightly more judicious editing, Let's Turn It Into Sound could have been a grand crossover statement, combining admittedly trendy synth experiments with freak-folk charisma. But that's not what Smith is going for here. Instead, the LP feels like listening to someone try out a new talent, learning as they go along, substituting practiced polish with a hunger for new ideas and self-expression.

A fair criticism might be that Let’s Turn It Into Sound is a little formless, reliant on the novelty of whizzing sounds and pomp-filled arrangements, but in the hands of Aurelia Smith these certainly have the capacity to amaze and astound.

Repeat listens uncover a musician trying to arrange these musical insights into something as affecting and creatively grounded as her best ambient works.

While everything here is skillfully executed and grand, there’s a sneaking sense the compositions have little to say beyond the reimagining of vocal traditions and the benefits of pushing boundaries. Nevertheless, Smith has created a mirror of our tumultuous modern world, one in which we can see our faults, fickleness, and boundless possibilities.