Aural Aggravation

26th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Having slipped out ‘This and That’ as a forewarning of the imminent arrival of his ‘difficult third album’, the time is almost upon us for its unveiling. Just as it was six years between his debut, Grievous Bodily Charm and second album Touch & Go, so another eight years have elapsed since then, although he’s maintained his profile through touring – something which for him comes with the added challenge beyond the usual logistical matters with a wild stage act and even wilder and largely impractical-looking outfits. But then, Mr Vast is more than music. The creation of Henry Sargent of Wevie Stonder – perhaps the sole exponents of the cack-pop genre – Mr Vast is more than a musical project. It’s an entire world, where the Vast persona is all encompassing, bringing together music and performance art, and there are no half-measures here, Vast fully embracing the strange, the wonky, the incongruous and the improbable.

He’s at pains to stress that this isn’t art, though, and explicitly states ‘Mr Vast is not art. He’s something that happens to you. So let him.’ I rather feel that there’s no choice in this matter, really. The idiom goes that one should ‘expect the unexpected’, and this could well be a mantra for approaching Mr Vast – although it’s perhaps more appropriate to suggest that it’s all expected when it comes to his work. ‘Accept the expectable, yeah?’ he says on ‘Ants’, before blabbering on about ‘swan crisps’ and reflecting on deep water: the wrongness and the delivery remind me of Nathan Barley – perhaps one of the most underrated and uncomfortable sitcoms of the early 00s. ‘Failure is its own reward’, he croons moments later, spinning another classic postmodern dichotomy within a cocoon of New Age hipster jargonisms.

And so it was – and still is – that ‘This and That’ confounded expectation by being remarkably not-weird, a surprisingly danceable cut that could be legitimately referred to as a ‘bangin’ choon’. How serious or how ironic or parodic it is, remains unclear. Before we get to it on the album however, there’s ‘What’s Difficult About Being Stupid?’, which at twenty-nine seconds in length is more of a sliver of facetious frippery with a toy keyboard, and ‘Scatterbrain’, a sub-two-minute flourish of medieval folk absurdity that comes on like a collision between Horrible Histories and Steeleye Span. Or something. In this context, the pumping hyperactive acid beats of ‘This and That’ seems like a moment of sanity, despite its OTT KLF-style ‘stadium house’ / ambient / soul breakdown in the middle before going full-on happy hardcore. ‘Oh, listen to the sound effects… that’s fantastic’, he comments amidst a stream of conscious lyrics, before drum ‘n’ bass breaks drop.

Upping the Ante is appropriately titled: it’s peak Vast. ‘The Bench’ is almost – almost – a spoken-word vignette within a soft, mellifluous ambient composition, and it’s almost – almost – not weird or off-kilter. But then, as we learn a few tracks later in what seems like a confession of sorts, Vast tells us, ‘I Can’t Help It’. This track is another Hi-NRG work which incorporates drum ‘n’ bass and samples but breaks out into derangement worthy of a Brett Easton Ellis character – but there’s some observational content in the mix, too.

‘Neural Preening’ takes the form of jerky, quirky early eighties electronica, a bit Devo, a bit Thomas Dolby, a lot hyperactive. Keeping up with the sheer range of what’s going on is mind-bending, and while the gentle acoustic ‘Guess Who’ does offer some breathing space, it does so while offering something a bit trippy, a bit Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd. Then he goes and spins things into a different orbit with the murky groove of ‘Crumpet Man’, which could be a ‘Born Slippy’ meets Tubular Bells for 2026 if he wasn’t talking about animals, muffins, and pancakes.

It would be easy enough to simply bracket this as ‘experimental’ – and also ‘barking’ and ‘batshit’, which I’ve probably done myself before – but this fails to give due credit. Sure, there’s a certain sense that Mr Vast’s main purpose is to explore the furthest fringes with no regard for musical or social norms, instead seeing what new novelty oddness he can create, but equally, one gets the impression that this isn’t forced gimmickry, but simply how his head works – this is the work of someone who is wired differently. He doesn’t so much think outside the box, but exists outside the box, while performing origami on said box, which is, of course full not only of frogs, but newts and Natterjack Toads, all of which may or may not exist when the box is closed or folded in a certain way.

Some might think that with his evident ability, Sargent could make music that’s far more commercially viable, but as a writer who thought it would be a doddle to knock out a genre novel and actually get paid for this, only to find that the literary Tourette’s kicks in after a few paragraphs or pages. In other words, he really can’t help it. And this is a good thing. There’s too much bland shit out there. There’s too much manufactured shit out there. There’s too much shit out there, full stop. But there’s a real fear amongst musicians that they need to confirm to have any chance of success – whatever that is – and reach an audience and survive. Mr Vast exists not only outside of this, but in his own world, one almost devoid of reference points, comparisons, and peers. And this is what we need more of in the creative community. Arguably, such freedom to disregard pretty much all influence and all trends is a luxury, but to submit to conformity is to surrender the foundations of what it is to create.

Upping the Ante is warped, weird, and dances to its own tune and no other. It deserves applause – and your listening ears.

AA