Gaika has announced the release of his debut album entitled Basic Volume. It arrives 27 July via Warp. The new record features production work from PC Music affiliate and Sophie, Gang Gang Dance’s Dutch E Germ, Dre Skull and Frank Ocean collaborator Buddy Ross. "Basic Volume takes its name of from my fathers maroon technology,” says Gaika; "It is the science he taught me before he left this world. It is the poetry we grew under and were made strong by its force. With this knowledge I fought until my hands bled, propelled into combat by the god of metals. It’s all true, I nearly lost my heart to angry memories, waking dreams of burnt out laboratories and dead friends. I am this chemistry and it is I and so I wrote it here. BASIC VOLUME is collection of alchemical parables for all the Immigrants who wander the earth in search of themselves”Check out the artwork above, and watch the video for a new single, ‘Crown and Key’, above.
The video is directed by filmmaker Paco Raterta. Speaking about the video, Raterta says "The first time I heard ‘Crown And Key’, it reminded me of the funeral chants in the chapels of the village where I grew up, and it opened up all the biblical nightmares I use to have as a kid. If you know Christian visuals, they are very grotesque, stiff and very beautiful at the same time. The camera movement is inspired again by my memories as an altar boy, it’s basically a POV memory of mine, entering the church, carrying the bible and seeing everyone around, but the faces were always never clear, I can feel like they are looking at me, but I don’t see them at all."
Basic Volume succeeds two mixtapes, 2015’s <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2AqPb1LrJZYiB52V3NF4ys?si=vVf_unW8RpKTNrC1Mu6WTw
" target="out">MACHINE, 2016’s SECURITY and two EPs, both released on Warp, SPAGHETTO (2016) and The Spectacular Empire (2017).
