What more do you need to know? After releasing two EPs for the venerable electronica label — Spaghetto and The Spectacular Empire (not to mention a few self-released mixtapes for good measure) — Warp Records is turning shit up up UP by finally announcing the release of Brixton-based Gaika’s proper debut full-length album.
Need more factual incentives? How about these apples:
Due July 27 on digital (with other, slightly less-electro-tinged formats to follow), Basic Volume’s 15 tracks — which include production from the likes of SOPHIE, Jam City, Dre Skull, and more — freely intermingle some primo signifiers of British reggae, gothic-dancehall, and soundsystem culture with some deep-ass ideas concerning race, personal philosophies, and political ideologies. “My thing has always been: be yourself — whatever you are, be that — and people will walk towards it,” Gaika says. “I am whatever I say I am. And I want that to apply to all people of colour, all black people. This idea of what we like, make, do and how our art can be defined from outside of us is something I’ll actively try to disrupt.”
I’m sure you’re sold by now, but just to kick the tantalization dial up another notch, check out the new video for album single “Crown & Key” (directed by Paco Raterta) down below, which you can purchase now while you wait for the rest of Basic Volume’s basic volumetric volume to materialize.