At his Low End Theory parties in L.A., the Gaslamp Killer makes a point of playing whatever records he wants, whether it's obscure Turkish music or wobbly dubstep or garage rock. Like DJ Shadow and Madlib before him, the Gaslamp Killer's record collection is, presumably, so large and unwieldy that what we're listening to is the sound of someone being devoured by his own resources. Death Gate continues the trend: In just over 15 minutes, there are enough scraps of sound for another artist to create a whole album. But what's most intriguing about Gaslamp Killer is that, like early Shadow and Madlib, he has an understanding of restraint. With so much music to draw from, there's a tendency to want to throw out your whole arsenal. But if there's anything connecting these five tracks it's a sense of minimalism-- even tastefulness.
As you might guess, marijuana is a key inspiration here. In a recent interview with Resident Advisor, Gaslamp Killer professes that his aspiration is to have a weed hook-up in whatever city he's in; that way, he can get stoned as soon as he gets off the plane. Back when the mighty herb was half as powerful and half the price, you had dub and jazz and stoner-rock to get high to. Nowadays, with hydroponic technology moving as fast as the Internet, you have all of them in one. Which, at its best, is precisely what the Gaslamp Killer does.
"Shattering Inner Journeys" could serve as the Gaslamp Killer's manifesto, and it's easily his best track to date. In a strikingly raw six minutes, Raymond Scott-style library synth squeals creep over a drum break ripped out of a mid-1990s Mo' Wax vault, bleeding into an appropriately eerie Piper at the Gates of Dawn homage. And then in the last minute, the song chugs out on an oddly dubby proto-industrial pitter-patter. Snaky, whiny crunk-rap keyboard riffs twirl around a skittering synth-drum beat on opener "Fun Over 100", and the remainder rock gut-punch, battered hip-hop beats that sound like old Company Flow bootleg instrumental tapes. Though these tracks can be somewhat compressed, there is a noticeable paucity of instruments, typically relying on little more than drums and a keyboard or guitar lick.
The Gaslamp Killer's profile was raised substantially by his production work on Gonjasufi's A Sufi and a Killer, and "When I'm in Awe" is like a lost track from it, almost to a fault. Within that album, the track would have fit into its whacked-out, garage-Rasta drug nightmare. But here it feels more like a bonus track, especially compared to the rest of the EP, which foregoes that album's Beefheart-hop sound for pronounced percussive instrumentals.
The era and sound that the Gaslamp Killer is going for is pretty easy to identify: the b-boy end of sample-heavy mid-90s hip-hop. But the way that he approaches his tracks is distinctive both in what he adds as well as what he leaves out. What will a Gaslamp Killer LP sound like? It's hard to tell, which, in this case, is an exciting prospect.
