Gonjasufi video 'The Blame': Errors and Remember Remember live review

Some lovely shots in this new video for Gonjasufi's the Blame, directed by Neil Krug with cinematography by David Myrick. I'm a sucker for films of empty cities. Slightly disappointed that my favourite rhyming couplet of the year has been mangled in a 'radio-edit' style but hey, it's a family show (I guess).

In other news, my review of Errors and Remember Remember from XOYO last week, is online now at Londonears new blog. It has some pretty pictures too.

It's not a very wordy post today, but I have a ton of reviews to finish and in order to do them all justice I will upload them together on Saturday. I'm interviewing Geoff Farina tomorrow and going to see Bo Ningen tonight so it's a bit non-stop at the moment.

review: Gonjasufi, 'MU.ZZ.LE'

I'm fascinated by Gonjasufi. This alter-ego of Californian yoga teacher Sumach Valentine emerged out of the San Diego hip-hop scene on the '90s, and nowadays his music is more of a psychedelic blur caught between genres. On his full length debut A Sufi and A Killer he worked with the Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus to create a mix of hip hop beats and 60s psych rock, and when I saw the Gonajsufi live show last year it had more common with the Stooges and MC5 than hip-hop. The constant factor was Sumach's voice, which is a spooked, cracked, almost otherworldly instrument, often heavily processed to sound even more distant.
MU.ZZ.LE follows hot on the heels of the freely distributed EP The 9th Inning, which was a brief collection of older tracks that had never been released, and it had more of a hip-hop vibe although it still drifted through a variety of sounds. MU.ZZ.LE contains ten tracks though it only runs for 25 minutes and the songs seldom get past the 3 minute mark. This time around production duties are split with San Diego's Psychopop and the overall sound has moved away from both straightforward hip-hop and psych rock towards something more coherent and individual. The voice is central to it all, in turns creepy and sinister, then warm and smooth, it's no wonder that he is often mentioned in the same breath as other unique voices such as Tom Waits, Leadbelly and Bjork.
'White Picket Fence' is a startling curveball of an opener, the overall mix of vocals, drums and electric piano is skewed and stretched and heavily reverbed so that it's immediately unsettling and attention seeking. 'Feedin' Birds' is equally striking, early Magic Band style dynamics accompany a duet with his wife, their vocals both treated telephonically.
'Nikels and Dimes' is the stand-out track; it's a multi-layered piece with some relatively uptempo beats underpinning a swirling, circling melody.
The likes of 'Time Out' and 'Skin' are abrasive and edgy, while 'Venom' is downbeat and soothing and 'The Blame' owes most to his hip-hop roots. Brief closing track 'Sniffin' is the most experimental, with disjointed bursts of electric guitar contrasting with a dreamy vocal.
When I heard MU.ZZ.LE was only 25 minutes long I thought that it would feel like a tease but it's actually pretty satisfying. It makes me hunger for what Gonjasufi will do next.

MU.ZZ.LE is out now on Warp records.

Slow Thrills weekly Spotify playlist 002

Slow Thrills list 002

The second week of this, and it's a good one! It's compiled by myself (Jonathan) as I haven't got quite got on top of the contributions just yet. I think I will do a longer list on the last Friday of every month as a bit of a round-up. Again, I've just featured music that's been relevant to my week, hope you enjoy. The playlist includes new singles from Real Estate and Dad Rocks!, a track from the new albums from Guided By Voices and Darren Hayman, plus Eleanor Friedberger - a live review of her went up this week - and Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands - who were my new music post this week. There's also Gonjasufi remixed by Oneohtrix Point Never and a track by Blanck Mass, who have bagged one of the support slots to Explosions in the Sky later this month and have just been added to Jeff Mangum's ATP

Listen to Slow Thrills list 002

Last week's edition is here

Gonjasufi: teasers from new album

Gonjasufi teases new album release/ download track 'Nikels & Dimes'

*UPDATED* now you can download an mp3 of 'Nikels and Dimes' when you submit your email at Warp Records site

I was struggling for something to write about today - well, it is still January, but lovely Warp records dropped some teasers for the forthcoming Gonjasufi mini-album MU.ZZ.LE here

As well as lots of choices of format and artworks, they released a stream of "Feedin' Birds", a short but perfectly spooky duet between Gonjasufi and his wife, which hopefully sets the tone for the album