(09.15.05) Angelo Emile Gastelum’s most valuable commodity is his ears: they are
what allowed him to fake his way through several piano recitals as a
child without knowing how to read music and they are what gave him
understanding of the Sacred Santerio’s efforts to teach him
percussion. Gastelum has a direct pipe from his ears to his heart
and, even though his debut EP is filled with all manner of laptop
noodling (the record is, after all, regardless of how organic and real
it sounds, being released by Imputor? “pioneers of the wanktopcore
genre” Records), Gastelum has heard the natural rhythm of poetry and,
in Musically Speaking, he has ditched the words for
instruments.
There is an easy Jamaican rhythm in “Soul Jam,” a rollicking
side-to-side motion of the rhythm section that moves like a boat on a
gentle tide beneath the winsome keyboard melody. The melody sounds
like it is being provided by an air-compressor driven instrument, a
nasal tootle that sounds like a child’s toy. Percussion pops and
clatters in “Bank Shot” like the geometric rhythm of pool balls
clicking about the table, the cues rattling against the polished wood
of the table edge. “Violent Children” actually manages to line a
group of the little whippersnappers up and get them to provide a hand
clap pulse beneath a grizzled guitar line and a saucy keyboard melody.
Bass and a saxophone drift through the studio like a pair of lovers
performing a slow fox trot.
While Gastelum employs a number of musicians to lay down the framework
for his tracks, all the music gets dumped into a laptop where it gets
tweaked, bent, and twisted. He’s got a poem in his head, you see,
stanzas that he’s got to get out. But all he’s got is sound and all
we hear is a wordless ode to poetic meter.
Musically Speaking is out now on Imputor?.
