In five years of beat creation, former Boston area beat goblin, Gobby has yet to misplace an eighth note – having staked his roots in what he used to call “failed attempts at hip hop,” he’s since absorbed practically every genre of electronic music, from harsh noise to 80s electro, forming a deeply personal style too large for any form to contain.

His latest batch, “Grid-Loc” leans on the cleaner side, focusing on pristine digi-workouts, drawing inspiration from the past decade’s worth of micro house and minimal techno, heavy on coercive resonant frequencies. But ambient this ain’t – hardly a bar repeats like one before it; instead tracks morph slowly from groove to the next; take “Nylon,” which plays like dominos falling – you think you know what to expect but the effect is too mesmerizing to look away.

It wouldn’t be a Gobby album without at least one non sequitur: “TextDataPlan” is as worthy a Madlib tribute as any – the reverence for his heroes has always reminded me of the jazz days, when even the freakiest innovators weren’t afraid to wear influence on their sleeves.

Get it free, direct download here.

-WK

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