Polaroids Of Androids

Gonjasufi
A Sufi And A Killer

I think about the year 2030. A lot. I guess this is - at least on a sub-conscious level - because I'm fairly obsessed with the television program How I Met Your Mother, where the future portion of the show is set in 2030.

Aside from this slightly embarrassing revelation of my personal life, this obsession is also closely connected to my enjoyment of music which I think I'll look back on in twenty years time and say to myself - "Yep, that's some classic shit". More specifically, timeless music that isn't necessarily bound to a particular trend or era.

Rocking gently in my old ergonomically precise chair in the year 2030, LOL-ing with my fugly children about how people used to think it was cool to get tattoos, pierce their Fanny Mays and listen to The National, I can safely say that when the time comes to discuss the music of 2010, at least an hour will be set aside to talk about all the brilliantness of A Sufi And A Killer.

Apologies to those lovely Die! Die! Die! fellas. Likewise to Wolf Parade, Menomena and Further. And you can throw your Panda Bears on the old Arcade Campfire and grill your Blogspot Marshmallows to your heart's content. Because this is the best album of Twenty Ten.

The first appealing drawcard is how the record pleasantly jumps through countless musical genres without sounding at all contrived or forced. Punk, funk, hip-hop, spaz-pop-electro, mudda-folking folk and East European polka all get at least a mild rubdown at some point. This genre-skipping is also backed by an obsessive switch-up of the overall musical style, with contradicting descriptions such as glitchy, organic and soulful all fitting descriptions.

And, while Gonjasufi's lack of respect for creative boundaries is the most obvious musical pleasantry displayed, what's most surprising about this is how, even after countless revisits and levels of high-rotation that would make even those that worked on the record gasp, the record still sounds completely fresh and amazingly unpredictable - without sacrificing any of it's approachability.

This engaging quality can at least partly be credited to the countless musical paths taken. However, like any decent piece of music recorded over the past forty billion years, there's a true sense of artistic ownership here. Gonjasufi doesn't just simply preach to his flock, but genuinely believes every word he utters, sings and yelps. Whether this is through a self-analysis of his own mortality, legacy and regret as with Ancestors ("Will you know my name?"); or dealing with his feelings of alienation on Klowds ("This is not our home"); or even the confrontational emotional axe he uses through lost love and heartbreak on the brilliant nursery-rhyme-reverbed-to-death She Gone - the result is the same. This is music that just sounds real. No distracting decorative pieces, just a man laying down his thoughts and feelings in an unrestrained format.

Gonjasufi's timeless "homeless man, tripping off acid in a desert, discovering time travel and the invention of electronic music" vocals are the essential asset that connects the artist so profoundly to the music. His raspy hyperbolic flow - almost always buried under a ridiculous amount of distortion - interjects perfectly within the ever changing musical landscape. He croaks through the passionate moments, simultaneously refraining himself from exploding in anger and collapsing into a messy world of tears, Sex And The City re-runs and enough Bombay Sapphire to drown a large horse.

Which brings me to reason #472 on why this album is so essential - the lack of fixed emotion. The songs aren't particularly happy or sad. The emotional shift within a single composition is occasionally utilised, but the overall emotion conveyed in each song is elegantly thrown back to the listener to allow them to apply their own interpretation.

This is the kind of music I live for. This is the kind of record that re-confirms my lust/love for music. I know that sounds incredibly wanky, but there's simply no other way to describe how great this is. If you enjoy your music created with a genuine passion, void of any predefined artistic limitations and breathing, bleeding, punching, crying all over you in a confusing mess of pain, hope and love, then I think I can safely say that this is the only album you'll need to buy this year.

Words by Jonny