Why the Gaslamp Killer at 1up Will Be This Week's Most Interesting Show

The Gaslamp Killer is making an appearance at The 1up on Colfax this Thursday, August 7. Born William Benussen, GLK has been involved directly in producing and creating some of the most innovative electronic music and hip-hop of recent years. When he moved to Los Angeles from San Diego in...

By Tom Murphy

August 6, 2014

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The Gaslamp Killer is making an appearance at The 1up on Colfax this Thursday, August 7. Born William Benussen, GLK has been involved directly in producing and creating some of the most innovative electronic music and hip-hop of recent years. When he moved to Los Angeles from San Diego in 2006, GLK co-founded the popular and influential club night Low End Theory. The reach and impact of that weekly showcase went as far as Denver and proved inspirational to Qknox and Kalyn Heffernan of Wheelchair Sports Camp's Quantized Fitness.

Working with Flying Lotus and Mainframe, GLK produced Gonjasufi's 2010 debut album, A Sufi and a Killer which blurred the line completely between dub, experimental hip-hop and psychedelia. Those lessons GLK took to his own debut full length record, 2012's Breakthrough. Much like his supremely eclectic DJ sets, cultivated during his years spinning in San Diego and L.A., revealed GLK's gift for amalgamating ideas distilling them in fascinating ways so that Arabic and Persian rhythms could intertwine seamlessly with psychedelic rock and hip-hop.

GLK's idiosyncratic live sets can be hyperkinetic and deeply rhythmic or chilled out grandeur, and often some of both. That the man has been invited to play festivals as different in focus as Coachella and Austin Psych Fest is some indication of the cross-genre nature of his music. If you go, it won't be the standard DJ and laptop and obligatory throwing hands in the air between triggering and controlling beats on offer.

The Gaslamp Killer w/Eliot Lipp, SuperVision and Vibe Street, 8:30 p.m. doors, 9 p.m. show, Thursday, August 7, The 1up, 303-779-6444, $10 adv. / $15 d.o.s., 18+

• BACKBEAT'S GREATEST HITS • - The Gaslamp Killer at Beauty Bar February 10, 2012 slideshow - Flume's Harley Streten started making music with software he got from a cereal box - The ten best jazz drummers of all time - The ten best jazz pianists of all time

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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Twitter: @simianthinker