GAIKA. Photo by Emanuel Shogbolu
When GAIKA first emerged from the Brixton underground with 2015's Security, he was hailed as a formidable voice in alternative dancehall with his industrial cyberpunk sensibilities inflecting jams built for sweaty bashments, a style he dubbed "ghettofuturism." Collaborations with Dean Blunt, SOPHIE, and many others followed. If you revisit his early works today, they still sound like they're charting exciting new terrain.
"LADY," GAIKA's new single featuring bbymutha, switches the style up. Psychedelic rock is the foundation for GAIKA's hypercolor infatuation anthem — you might be reminded of Yves Tumor's heel turn with the song, and Kidä, who worked on Tumor's "Lovely Sewer," handles co-producer duties. Adrift on gleaming waves of distorted guitar, GAIKA revels in his companion with the reverent, dazed tones of someone at the foot of a massive altar. bbymutha provides a reliably deft verse, sending the song toward the arena of rap-rock while clearly standing apart from it. As ever, GAIKA is concerned with subversion. Listen below; DRIFT, GAIKA's new album, is out on September 8 via Big Dada.
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Drift album artwork
