Been an admirer of Gaslamp Killer’s since his mix of music from the Finders Keepers label. My admiration grew significantly when I heard his production work on Gonjasufi’s amazing album A Sufi & A Killer. Since then, I’ve been trying not to let me expectations get to far ahead of themselves about his full-length album Breakthrough. On his first LP, GLK builds off of all the fantastic things he’s already done and shows great range in the styles and sounds. “Dead Vets” is one of the standout tracks, one of many that feature special guests, in this case Adrian Younge and Michael Raymond Russell (aka MRR of MRR / ADM). As you might expect from the resumes of these three, the sound is heavy and dark. I’m not sure you can get darker and funkier than this (perhaps if David Axelrod had produced it with a reanimated Earl Palmer on drums). Hard thing to exceed my expectations these days, but Breakthrough certainly does.