Food for Thought. The Gaslamp Killer, Breakthrough.

It's been a long ol' wait for they that've been tracing the movements and sonic manoeuvres of Los Angelino hip hop pioneer William Benjamin Bensussen. Preluded by everything from umpteen mixes, to turns with revered glitch hop magician Guillermo Scott Herren, to the production of FlyLo's sophomore full-length Los Angeles (that which opens with a certain track entitled Brainfeeder, the name of Ellison's since established indie to which Bensussen now belongs) The Gaslamp Killer's Breakthrough has been a while coming. And it's a breakthrough both with regard to this début LP and proverbially, as Bensussen's evocative hip hop instrumentals here bear the enticing doomsday sadism of Jaime Meline's latest works, combining this with the commensurately mystic vocal interjections of yogic croak Gonjasufi and perhaps some of the most successful skits committed to record in recent times. Fuck for instance, a quite informative etymology of the F-word that is then bewilderingly layered atop Vivaldi's Spring and sound FX snatched from Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds puppetry, proves effing brilliant midway through.

Although Breakthrough is a thorough effort, and a thoroughly rewarding one at that: from the skittering Morricone-fused jazz of Holy Mt Washington, through to the syncopated snare lollop of the retrospectively styled and Wax Poet Adrian Younge-featuring Dead Vets and beyond, The Gaslamp Killer illuminates trails and ways through a pretty invigorating voyage. One what winds down amongst the most infernal of urban orchestrations (Flange Face), and ebulliently off-kilter glitchcore soundscapes, through which our guide is shadowed by fellow Brainfeeder Daedelus (Impulse) – the latter sounding disconcertingly similar to Zomby massacring Rocketnumbernine round the reverse of some grotty Dutch garage.

Keep It Simple Stupid, a rambunctious drum 'n' asiatic rumble number is, alas, all too succinct as its expressive cymbals clatter to close just shy of two minutes, whilst the stellar apocalyptica of In The Dark... never quite fulfils its fully explosive potential, progressively fizzling out to the woebegone tune of anticlimactic cello strings. Although otherwise, this one's real food for thought for they that perceive hip hop to be nothing but pithy, expletive-addled affirmations of ostentation, and misogynistic ogling and wholly objectionable objectification, and bedazzling vapidity. For this may well be Bensussen's Breakthrough into the brains of they that have been haplessly crammed into quite such a narrow-minded outlook.