エレクトロニック・プロデューサー: Gifted & Blessed(GB)名義の新作アルバム"Heard and Unheard"がStones Throwからリリース。セミモジュラーシンセサイザーとアナログドラムマシンなどを使って制作された全10トラックが収録。
Low End Theoryなどのロサンゼルスのビートシーンの第一世代から活動し、これまでKalela, Ras G, Steve Spacek, Sa-Raなどのプロデュースやコラボレーションなども行ってきたキャリアを持つ。GB, Frankie Reyes, The Abstract Eye, The Steoples, The Reflektorなど多名義のプロジェクトで作品をリリースしてきており、アンダーグラウンドなエレクトロニックやダンスミュージックシーンで支持されてきた。Gifted & Blessed名義のフルアルバムとしては、2016年以来となる。

発売・販売元 提供資料 （2023/11/10）

Gabriel Reyes-Whittakers first album as Gifted & Blessed (aka GB) in seven years, Heard & Unheard is very different from the one that preceded it, Emotional Topography, a tranquil set of ambient wash suitable for daydreams of escape via floatation tank. Its also a turn from Yamaheaters, his more rhythmic and brighter self-released 2022 EP. Released by Stones Throw, home to the musicians pursuits as Frankie Reyes (solo-synthesizer Latin lingo translations) and as one-half of the Steoples (avant-soul with Yeofi Andoh), this is the type of home-listening machine soul that in the early 90s would have been tagged IDM. Hardly an exercise in dabbling in a specific sound with the intent to revisit an era, Heard and Unheard is wholly contemporary, if crafted with an Oberheim synthesizer and Roland drum machines, all analog gear that first hit the market in the 80s. Its also personal rather than studiously distanced, with Reyes-Whittaker fueled by the contemplation of spirituality, mysticism, and developments in his life. Theres a stern, highly concentrated quality to most everything, yet its all positive, sedately churning and rippling away, brightened with shafts of light. Most emotive is "Yellow Ji," where Reyes-Whittaker flashes back to doors that have opened for him as an artist. Its steady pulsing gait and streams of melodic and atmospheric elements could just as easily soundtrack an animated sci-fi journey revealing unexpected pathways. The tracks that are either weightless or not beat-oriented -- the middle sequence of "The Waiting Breath" and "Neutrino Stream," and flickering finale "Guidance" -- are just as strangely comforting as anything by Neil Ollivierras Detroit Escalator Co. or King Britts solitary Fhloston Paradigm flights. That said, this is very much its own captivating thing. ~ Andy Kellman

Rovi