Send "Gatekeeper " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Chicago duo Gatekeeper aren’t your average nu-disco act. While others fiddle around with tiresome sample presets and desperately ape mediocre records, Aaron David Ross and Matthew Arkell are happy doing their own thing – which, if their press is to be believed, includes hosting vast music and light performances and other art school escapades. Of course, such grand designs and lofty ideas would mean nothing if the music they made was sub-standard. The thing is, their music is good – very, very good.Giza is their second release, following the acclaimed Optimus Maximus 12” on Kompakt offshoot Fright Records. Like that release, Giza plays host to a selection of weird and wonderful disco experiments that hold cold, dark horror – or, more specifically, the 80s slasher movies of John Carpenter – as their overriding inspiration. Musically, Carpenter’s own themes are an obvious point of reference, alongside Giallo music (weird and wonderful Italian thriller soundtracks from the 70s and 80s), Italo disco, EBM and, more recently, darkwave. As the hype says, this is slasher disco – and it’s just as moody, intense and brooding as you’d imagine – and spookily cinematic to boot. Across Giza’s six tracks, the Chicagoan duo explore a variety of horror movie themes and styles, from the fist-pumping pomp of the titles (“Chains”) to the climatic chase scene of closer “Oracle”. In between, there’s plenty of ominous pomposity (“Storm Column”), moody introspection (“Serpent”), twisted nightmares (“Mirage”) and chilling scene stealing (“Giza”). It all adds up to a set that oozes authenticity (this could easily have been made in the early 1980s), yet offers up something fresh and involving. Clearly, Gatekeeper is a name to watch in 2011....full text |
| Thelineofbestfit |
| Gatekeeper’s Optimus Maximus was a limited release of synth-tech that was both directed towards and influenced by the scores of John Carpenter films (and a few others). Its dramatic sounds were enhanced by a heavy swathe of reverb, arpeggiated minor chord synth lines and a strong backbone of techno beats. However, the main criticism of this was that the title track heavily sampled influential synth artist Synergy and his track ‘Trellis’. In fact it was a little too borrowed and really resulted in some proto-industrial drums played linearly amongst the sounds of ‘Trellis’; it just wasn’t inventive enough for some. Musically, within Giza there are touches of Cold Cave, The Hasbeens, and a gloomy Kraftwerk, but essentially Gatekeeper are now following their own path. The first track ‘Chains’ is a crazily morbid and addictive listening experience. It is a combination of 80s tech noir and sleazy EBM/industrial: it sounds like it could be the pervy step-father to the theme of 80s crime show The Equalizer. If only the other tracks were oozing as much menace as this. Apart from ‘Giza’ the rest seem to be more filler than thriller, and although it does break the EP up into two neat halves it just doesn’t keep the pulsating momentum throughout. Both ‘Serpent’ and ‘Mirage’ are disorientating, with a mix of percussive noise and almost Gregorio chanting being loosely pinned down with relatively quiet beats. Overall Gatekeeper seem to have more of a grasp of what they want to achieve, and this is furthered with he help of fellow Chicago audio-visual crew Thunder Horse to create a series of videos (also released as VHS tapes!) that will coincide with the release. Dan McPharlin (who did the artwork for The Sword’s recent Warp Riders) wonderfully captures this retro-futurist feel to the EP for the artwork....full text |
| Junodownload |
| Last year, around the time Salem were causing such an online ruckus by marrying exploitation movie aesthetics to plodding beats, Pitchfork contributor Philip Sherburne wrote a piece on his blog that attempted to link the vogue for "witch house" to a wider trend toward dark, dank electronic music. He cast a wide net, from the krautrock-ish Emeralds to the haunted sound of post-Burial dubstep. But he also noted that, whatever the subgenre, the vibe of "much of it [is] specifically rooted in the apocalyptic aesthetics of the mid-80s," a time when Cold War horror seemed to leak into even the dance-your-cares-away world of club music. Perhaps no new act exemplifies this aesthetic as much as sometime Salem associates Gatekeeper. From its cover art (an Atari cartridge meets the Portable Grindhouse aesthetic?) to its sound, Giza is a slab of carefully reconstituted 80s synths. Gatekeeper combine elements of mid-period Cabaret Voltaire (the eerie, unintelligible sampled moans and growls), the most sinister stalking-you-down-a-dark-alley strains of Detroit techno (think Suburban Knight more than Derrick May), and the on-the-cheap choral grandeur of every keyboard-owning "composer" ever tasked to rip off Vangelis' score for Blade Runner. Obviously Gatekeeper's members are neck-deep in nostalgia for this era. Not for nothing is Giza's accompanying video collection being released on VHS. That kind of over-the-top commitment to retro is rare indeed. But still, do we really need another spot-the-reference exercise from a couple of guys who never quite got over the 80s? We do when it's executed with this kind of audacity and intensity. Sure, Giza's period detail is exquisitely rendered, with a bright and crisp sound in direct opposition to the digital murk of the witch house crew. But though Gatekeeper clearly know their history, this is miles from the stuffy, deadening world of vintage keyboard connoisseurship. The vibe of Giza is pure suburban hoodrat thrills, over-amped electronic music made for teenage metalheads playing coin-op games in grotty strip mall arcades. And despite Gatekeeper's audible love for Z-grade horror flicks, this isn't really bleak stuff. Gatekeeper realize that there's also lot of kitschy joy to be had with such superficially spooky materials, and at its best Giza offers the same kind of brute adrenaline rush this stuff gave good-natured darkness junkies the first time around....full text |
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