Album Review: The Gaslight Killer Breakthrough

Breakthrough is The Gaslamp Killer's debut album, and after more than ten years of cutting mixtapes, producing beats for numerous hip hop projects and being a key player in LA's seminal Low End Theory group, it seems William Bensussen's got a lot on his mind. It's a formidable collection of challenging work that, at its core, is an experimental hip hop record filtered through a psychological horror film lens.

Thunderous basslines lumber through dark forests of bent and twisted synths and coarse, gravelly textures crunch under foot. Heavy thumps (footsteps? Someone banging on the door?) echo throughout and a palpable sense of unease and dread permeates the strange wilderness Bensussen creates. Those expecting the gut-punching dancefloor bass music Gaslamp made his name with will be disappointed. This is not an approachable album, and does not engage the feet so much as your intuitive intellect. There are so many sounds on here (Bensussen is a master of sample selection and manipulation) and it's too complex to fully unravel. It forces you to feel your way through the tonal shifts and nightmare imagery the sound cues suggest, groping in the dark for a familiar element to guide you through the darkness. There are some accessible passages incorporating some impressively crushing basslines and even some smoky Middle Eastern influences (Nissim), but these are sporadic and don't alleviate the David Lynch-level weirdness.

If this is an exercise in free association it's a scary thing to behold. The idea of these sounds floating around freely in someone's mind is hard to imagine. Bensussen is passionate about this release, so it appears the intention to present a cohesive body of work was certainly there. The execution however represents a mind too feverish to earn anything other than horrified fascination.