The Gaslamp Killer - Boiler Room DJ set

In a long line of Turkish American musical visionary producers and genuine lovers of music, including Ahmet Ertegun and Arif Mardin, Willliam Benjamin Bensussen (also know as The Gaslamp Killer) stands alone.  Listen here to the Killer at London's Boiler Room debut the bulk of the stupendous Breakthrough LP, just released on Brainfeeder, in this devastating hour and a quarter DJ set.  Seeing The Gaslamp Killer execute his own material beyond-deftly in a club context is illuminating.  His raw enthusiasm for music- as expressed in his sufi-mental dance style - is only the entry point.  Hear him redefine so-called 'Bass Music' to suit his dervish instincts.  In his typically amped fashion  as the set dances through material of his own featuring Gonjasufi as well as recent releases from (Brainfeeder label honcho) Flying Lotus (Pattern and Grid World EP) and his cohort Thundercat including DMT Song, a hilarious Mark Wahlberg sample from The Fighter, new instrumental hip hop bangers from in demand producers Hudson Mohawke (solo) and with Lunice as TNGHT (which actually sound good in a well executed mix for once), some Ghetto Tech from both DJ Rashad and a quick cut of Danny Brown, Dilla, Wu-Tang's Ice Cream, Portland producer EPROM's Regis Chillbin,  Frank Ocean's Pink Matter, Clark's Fantasm Planes, the jungle classic Dead Dred, Zomby, Flosstradumus Lana's Theme, Coki, Zebra Katz, and Dimlite.  The cherry on the sundae likely comes just past the hour mark with Andre 3000 and Pimp C's verse off UGK's International Players- suddenly his whole system drops out on him and without losing any momentum at all gets it back up and wobbles the opening of Glory by Domo Genesis.  Somehow the whole set culminates with Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner mixed pitch perfectly into Pink Floyd's Great Gig In The Sky. Psychedelia. 

Then in several deep bows of reverence he closes his set with a sad, erstwhile Mariachi trumpet ballad.

The Gaslamp Killer - The Mayan (live set)

When I started this blog 2 years ago, out of a renewed interest in music in general, particularly a renewed appreciation for certain types of - largely Detroit- Hip Hop (the production opus of J Dilla, Black Milk, a young honk named Danny Brown) as well as a handful of Electronic Dance Music producers and DJ's who fascinated me.  The Gaslamp Killer was exactly that cat.  His infectious mixes of everything from Jimi Hendrix to Dilla, to psychedelic pastiches of the Turkish Pop his grandfather cultivated a deep and abiding love in, spoke to types of devotional and psychedelic music I've always been drawn to.  I scoured the internet looking for the best performances of him live, such as this one which I called The Best Backyard Party Ever for obvious reasons.  Another particularly brilliant set in a unique setting I came across was at the Natural History Museum First Fridays (06.05.09). 

William Benjamin Bensussen is a Turkish American (he is in fact the son of a Turkish-Lebanese-Jewish father and Lithnuanian-Jewish mother) visionary who came to prominence in the DJ club culture of San Diego.  The questionable club district was dubbed The Gaslamp District and so arose a counterpoint to that glib surface side of club culture.  In 2005 he relocated to LA and co-founded an experimental party series (Low End Theory) with Daddy Kev and DJ Nobody in the area of Lincoln Heights.  In the eclectic LA beat scene he played frequently alongside Daedalus, Samiyam and Flying Lotus; all of whom he collaborates with on his brand new Breakthrough LP (on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label).  In the interim he seems to have done everything from playing over-inspired sets for under-enthused hip hop fans waiting for headliner MF Doom to take the stage (or someone wearing his mask) to producing the bulk of Gonjasufi's A Sufi And A Killer.

With Electronic Dance Music having become hyper-popular and lionized some very questionable button-pushing barbarians at the gate will The Gaslamp Killer prove to be the refreshing antidote for DJ culture gone wrong?  Or gone right?  Despite his prodigious skills as a producer the Killer is best heard as a DJ such as here in his set the other day at The Mayan in LA. Listen early in his set for his debut of Nissim with Amir Yhagmai (who predictably for LA is a member of a musical duo Jogger with Alan Thicke's son Jonathan) plucking a virtuous line on yiali tambur and guitar.  The track also features Daedalus on bass as the three tried to extend and breakdown a Turkish record the Killer found one day.