Gaslamp Killer – All Killer (Finders Keepers 1-20) [Album]

Twisted Nerve

September 16, 2009, 11:31 AM

Views: 315   Comments: 3

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I already thought I was naff at putting albums in genre classifications, what do I do with this? Jazz, 70s funk, psychedelia, folk, blues, rock and everything in between, all cut up and put back together like a huge musical jigsaw.

Gaslamp Killer has taken a selection of the Finders Keepers Records' catalog and mixed them together. Having absolutely no knowledge of the Finders Keepers label, or Mr. Killer, I find it very hard to give a subjective review of this album, other than what I hear with my ears. My ears are telling me that what they hear is very good, indeed.

A huge variety of instruments all convene to produce a very eclectic sound. The sound scape is very enjoyable and I'm taken on a lovely journey through music of all different ages and styles, all layered together in perfect harmony. It's like the world should be. The whole thing has a very calming effect and ties each section nicely into the next and it brings to me kinds of music I would never have heard on their own and lets me enjoy them in little bite-sized chunks that won't overwhelm my ignorant mind-senses with something I can't handle. Mmm, tasty!

The only issue with this extensive education into all this new music is that there's no telling what belongs to what, unless you already know where it comes from, so should I want to go and find the sitar from the middle of track 5, I don't know how I would go about finding it. Maybe without the excellent mastery of Gaslamp Killer, I wouldn't enjoy it so much, anyway.

While I see a lot of people making the connection between what Gaslamp Killer has done here, with the work of DJ Shadow, I do definitely see a a definite distinction between the two, as All Killer has a much lighter hip-hop influence, a lot less scratching (although there is some) and a much smoother sound. While they both mix tracks from varying genres together, The Gaslamp Killer seems to have a much broader range of samples and stay much truer to the original tracks.

With this album being such a mix, it's so hard to pick on some specific bits that make the album so good, but if you're in any way diverse with your music listening, you should love something on this album, and because the album changes styles so much, if there is something you don't enjoy, you'll be back to something you love soon enough. While there are tracks, they all lead seamlessly on from one another. Keeping a thread through the album that is uncompromising and magnificent.

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