In 2013, the Gaslamp Killer was in a near-fatal road collision. Strangely, that marks the beginning of Instrumentalepathy.
The first five minutes of the album were apparently recorded in a morphine-addled state while he was still recovering in a hospital bed, and it shows. Opener "Pathetic Dreams" is a soporific tumble down the rabbit hole with odd vocals and even odder synth loops. It sets up a journey of sorts, a kind of kind beat-lover's acid trip that flows from overtly digital tracks to surprisingly instrumental ones. At one end of the spectrum you have the subsonic pummelling of "The Butcher," and at the other there's an 11-minute jam session, "In The Dark (Part Two)," with the Heliocentrics. It's not just black and white, either; GLK also hits everything in between. Both "Good Morning" featuring Gonjasufi and "Residual Tingles" manage to meet at the rare intersection of psych-rock and instrumental hip-hop, with great success.
If psych-hop is to be considered a genre then the Gaslamp Killer and Instrumentalepathy are at its forefront. If it's not, then he just invented it with this latest record.
(Cuss Records)The first five minutes of the album were apparently recorded in a morphine-addled state while he was still recovering in a hospital bed, and it shows. Opener "Pathetic Dreams" is a soporific tumble down the rabbit hole with odd vocals and even odder synth loops. It sets up a journey of sorts, a kind of kind beat-lover's acid trip that flows from overtly digital tracks to surprisingly instrumental ones. At one end of the spectrum you have the subsonic pummelling of "The Butcher," and at the other there's an 11-minute jam session, "In The Dark (Part Two)," with the Heliocentrics. It's not just black and white, either; GLK also hits everything in between. Both "Good Morning" featuring Gonjasufi and "Residual Tingles" manage to meet at the rare intersection of psych-rock and instrumental hip-hop, with great success.
If psych-hop is to be considered a genre then the Gaslamp Killer and Instrumentalepathy are at its forefront. If it's not, then he just invented it with this latest record.