Golden Age

Brian J. Gitkin returns to Wonderwheel Recordings with Golden Age, a ten song showcase of the latest evolution of his lyrical guitar-driven sound. Exploring the endless expanses of cumbia, North African, and Middle Eastern music, the guitarist has increasingly brought his own personality to these traditions, creating a lively interplay between distant modes and rhythms and his own New Orleans-steeped sound. While Brian J's an accomplished vocalist and bandleader (Cedric Burnside, Corey Henry, Pimps Of Joytime,etc), the Gitkin project has always been a space to delve into wordless, instrumental moods and melodies, and this latest iteration has taken that homegrown, yet far-reaching sound to its next level.

Golden Ageis unmistakably a product of the Crescent City. There's a swampy, subtropical feel to each of the ten compositions, to be sure. But there's also a rhythmic and percussive drive that is characteristic of the best New Orleans music, whether that be the funk of the Meters or the hoodoo vibes of Dr. John, both of which faintly echo through Gitkin's music. Check out "Go Time," a bouncy stomp with an organ solo by Palestinian keyboardist Simon Moushabeck that could've just as easily come from Art Neville or Booker T. Jones. Or "Ninth Ward Grind," with drummer Washington Duke's second-line backbeat and what Brian J. calls "this home-on-the-range western twang that keeps making its way into my sound." "Delta Mystic," a cosmic disco-gone-bayou, has a title calling to mind the gris-gris carrying Voodoo practitioners of the area but adds a vintage Rhythm Ace drum machine to the mix that J.J. Cale would be proud of.

The juxtaposition of unlikely influences that somehow end up making perfect sense continues with one of the album's highlights, appropriately named "The One." Something Brian J. describes as "Sudanese synth-trance mixed with Tuareg, Black Sabbath, and 2000s-era hipster disco," the song is a favorite at the band's live shows. "My goal when creating is to think as little as possible and do what feels good," he says. "I don't overthink creating. If I wake up with a groove in my head or melody idea I just go into my studio and record it." We should probably take the same advice, cease analyzing things too deeply, and simply enjoyGolden Age, Gitkin's latest batch of dreams made manifest.