Customer Reviews

A Sufi & A Killer

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Debut from San Diego yoga instructor who has performed with Masters Of the Universe,

Killowattz, Gaslamp Killer & Flying Lotus. This is haunting, dreamlike, psychedelic trip-hop

filtered through a mystic & gritty haze. You'll hear bits of deconstructed tropical island ballad pop,

lo-fi garage/noise psych rock, Middle Eastern/Indian ethnic strains, smooth funk, electro-

experimental cabaret minimalism, & more. This global, beat-driven psychedelia is both strangely

demented and surprisingly brilliant. Shades of Portishead, Sun Araw, MF Doom, Tom Waits,

Ariel Pink, Sunset, Gary War.

I'm a music director at a college radio station, and I tentatively checked out Gonjasufi's "A Sufi and a Killer" when I saw that Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer had their hands all over it. The description, as I recall, was really intriguing and impossible sounding. How could one artist combine all these different styles and bend genres whilst still sounding good?

After listening to it repeatedly for months, I'm still amazed by Gonjasufi's album. It's this wonderful rarity where aesthetics in both vocals and production are important and carefully constructed. This album was produced within an inch of it's life, and it shows. If you like 60s Psychedelia or world music influences, then you'll love this.

I recently purchased the album on vinyl, and it's amazing. This is one of those albums that was made for vinyl. It lends itself really well to a record player, with its tinges of lo fi, plus it's an album that's enjoyable to listen to all the way through.

If you want to hear this album exactly as it was recorded, get the vinyl.

I heard a track from this LP on some Italian radio online and loved it. It was the song "Sheep" and had a great mix of old sixties psychdelia and then some Indian music. All in all the tracks are really sweet and they have mixed up 60's rock, middle eastern scales, funk and whatever else.

Production on the disc was pretty intensive you can tell. Many tracks have that old scratchy record sound, which adds to the texture I think. Gonjasufi is a yogi/rapper from San Diego and he had a bit of help from some great DJs (like Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer) for this album.

Definitely a nice addition to the scene and it is an interesting listen that is all over the place - in a good way - think Beck or Gnarls Barkley. You'll love it!

Every now and then an artist comes along with whom it takes a moment or two to distinguish if they are completely nuts or completely ingenius. Where you decide to stand in terms of that line will determine your position in the polarized view of this person and will probably lead to numerous discussions about the worth(or lack thereof) of this persons accomplishments.

For me, Gonjasufi is that artist.

I don't know how I got wind of this guy. All I know is somehow I got hip to it and I got a hold of the album and couldn't stop playing it.

I'm not a Flying Lotus or Gaslamp Killer fan. Nothing against either of them at all, just never was exposed to them until i heard this album.

This is one of those things where you get it and love it or you dont get it and hate it. Regardless, one can't deny the potent message of positivity, reflection, introspection and humility that he spreads through his lyrics. That, my friend, is undeniable.

It took me a couple dozen listens and watching a couple interviews to realize that he's doing all the vocals. I thought some of it was samples or features but no... That added a whole 'nother dimensionality to it and how i percieve him.

Theres nothing i can really write that will give you a clear picture of what this album is. Its more of a feeling than something that can be described.

Take a minute to pick this up, you will not be dissappointed.

-author

This is so inventive and original. His sound is awesome. He has a talent for making me happy, regaurdless of what he's singing about.

This is like music by dead musicians discovered heard in my dreams or when I'm about to die myself. If Burial and early Tricky had a love-child and we contacted him in a seance, it might sound like this. One of those singers who sometimes sounds one hundred years old.

So much music recorded in the so-called zeroes or aughts seems to have been about genre bending, juggling and all other manner of genre manipulation. Not that it has never been done before. Discussions are ongoing, and I suppose we will not know for some time how the zeroes changed popular music. Music rating sites like [...] do not give five stars to recent albums. This is either because I am not finding them, they don't appreciate the genius of new music, there is no more great new music anymore, or it takes time to know whether a particular album is worth the accolade. Not that allmusic is the arbiter of music, but the writers or those and other sites like Pitchfork spend time listening, thinking and writing about music. They deserve, and get, at least some attention.

allmusic gave A Sufi and a Killer four stars, but I imagine that rating will be upgraded to five (as it should with the Flaming Lips' Embryonic, just to name one) with time. This is simply an innovative, fresh-sounding piece of music. It's world music and it sounds as fresh now as Manu Chao's Clandestino sounded upon its release. It is Portishead and Tom Waits. There are parts that Quentin Tarrantino would use for something. It is a beautiful and sad and trippy piece of work. But in all of this, given all those influences, the album does not sound derivative. There is a timeless quality here and that is why I believe this album will last. It's been produced by, among others, Flying Lotus. Los Angeles, Flying Lotus' album of last year, was terrific, but it never sounded timeless. It was an exercise in awesome grooves. So was Endtroducing when I bought it upon its release. The former seems to have fallen into obscurity; the latter is a classic.

Is Sufi and a Killer a future classic or a minor infatuation? I don't know. But it's the kind of album that is worth having now because it has all the making of a classic. On top of that, it's a lot of fun.

How did we get here?

Hip Hop in the wilderness. A gritty rock concert in a church.

This album takes me to a distant place. I like it, but I can not describe "it".

It is original. It deserves a listen.

Indian-inspired psychedelia from Gonjasufi, whose debut, A SUFI AND A KILLER, is drenched in dub and guitar effects. "Kobwebz," despite its spelling, invokes a slow caravan across the Gobi ("Ageing" takes the same country-western track, though with a bit more twang), while "Ancestors" benefits from Flying Lotus' abstract hip-hop beats. Then, to provide contrast, comes the sleazy listening of "Sheep" which ends on a rocking note. Sumach Valentine's vocals are often processed to the point of being harsh, but they fit with the general lo-fi vibe. The eclecticism keeps on coming: the aggressive electric guitars of the brief "Suzie Q"; the funk groove of "Kowboyz & Indians"; the warm, crackling soul of "Change"; the disco sweetness of "Candylane"; the sparse digitalia of "Holidays." "Duet" shares a sampled riff with Broadway Project's "Born Spirit" -- again showing how it's not the sample that makes a track. The breaks and sadness of "Advice" rumbles with a dark energy, and the Indian influence (in the form of a sitar) makes a reappearance on "Klowds." Unique and fascinating stuff.

What becomes apparent right away is Sumach Ecks' nonchalant execution and approach to music. His falsetto distorted vocals filtered through 60s psychedelia and lo-fi dub smoke, are at the heart of every song structure of each confident track. Mix into that the exquisite production by the one and only [mother-flippin] Gaslamp Killer, and you have a hit, that even with its peculiar sound, a label such as Warp is willing to back. First hearing Gonjasufi on Flying Lotus' Los Angeles (who described this sufi's voice as "timeless, incredible filfth"), I was almost sure that it was a sampled track from one of those dusty records found in a random garage sale somewhere between San Diego and Las Vegas. Imagine my surprise when I finally connected the dots! On this record, the duo (with a little help from FlyLo on "Ancestors" and Jon Ancheta as Mainframe on four tracks) clearly demonstrates that a great record can stand out all on its own, independent from the year, style, or the overly-produced sound one hears these days. In fact, I challenge you to attempt and replicate the sound of A Sufi And A Killer! From acid infused rock to influences from the pre-hip-hop era, the album strokes your inner mental child into a trippy daydream where the lyrics are as haunting as the ghost of Woodstock beats. Mind penetrating "She Gone", "Kowboyz And Indians", and an absolutely wonderful "Sheep", stay in your head long after the record has stopped playing. Really dug this debut, and I am looking forward to more output from the duo. Check out a remix album, The Caliph's Tea Party (Warp, 20010) featuring reworks of the tracks by the likes of Mark Pritchard, Bibio, Broadcast, and many other Warp favorites...