DESCRIPTION:
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Hypnotic, analog jams, straight out of Inglewood.

GB, or Gifted & Blessed, doesn't make much sense on paper. Hailing from Inglewood, a South LA neighborhood Dr. Dre shouts out in "The Next Episode," Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker has zigged-zagged through various scenes over the years. He rubbed shoulders with J Dilla in the early-'00s as part of the Sound In Color label crew, before going on to release on Kyle Hall's Wild Oats as The Reflektor and Eglo Records as The Abstract Eye. He's also behind "The High," the slow-burning closer on Kelela's RA Recommended Hallucinogen EP. Reyes-Whittaker recently migrated to an earthship (a structure made of recycled and natural materials in order to have minimal environmental impact) while collaborating with New Age legend Steve Roach. He does a lot, but as the lion's share of his communication with the public comes through tracks uploaded to his Bandcamp page, we still know very little about him.

More clues come from the music Reyes-Whittaker releases on his eponymous record label, where he explores electro, house and ambient, all of which fall under of the umbrella of "technoindigenous studies," a genre he invented and with which he seeks to unite ancestral traditions with modern technology. There's a lot to dig into here, but what's clear across GB's discography is a fluency with analog synthesis and, as one of his labels, Leaving Records, puts it, "vintage hardware's MIDI processes." On a surface level, he's interested in the communication between various machines. Zooming out, he addresses an increasingly fractured America, saying "May music help dissolve the boundaries between us." GB recently visited RA's LA offices at NeueHouse, where he performed a few effortless takes of "Invitation."

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Credits:
Director - Patrick Nation
Producer & Editor - Debbie Butts
Camera - Patrick Nation, Sim Higginson, Matt McDermott
Sound Engineer - Yurii Barybin
Colourist - Adam Clarke