Jay Z's Magna Carta... Holy Grail Collaborator Sumach "Gonjasufi" Valentine Re-emerges with "Maniac Depressant" & "Surfinfinity" from Forthcoming CALLUS (Warp Records)
"GOING INTO THE SPACE... I GIVE SO MUCH OF MY HEART... OPENING MYSELF UP TO THE WORLD... AS MY SOUL BECOMES PUBLIC DOMAIN, [WHICH IS] A BEAUTIFUL THING... BUT WITH THAT ALSO COMES [YOU KNOW] HATRED [AND SH*T]... I'VE HAD TO GROW THIS CALLUS [AROUND MYSELF] TO PROTECT MY HEART," vocalist, producer, DJ, and yoga teacher Sumach "Gonjasufi" Valentine warbled within a crackly, baren Warp Records message dubbed Callus (Introduction), which additionally included a fragment of his as-yet-unreleased song, "Surfinfinity." For those who may be largely unfamiliar, Sumach's biggest claim to fame would likely be working alongside Jay Z and producer Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshu on his genre-eschewing Magna Carta... Holy Grail (which samples "Nikels and Dimes") and was once described by Pitchfork Senior Editor Ryan Dombal as "a scraggly, scary, smoked-out croak that creeps like the spiritual offspring of George Clinton and Leadbelly." Gonjasufi has recorded and self-released a wide array of thought-provoking music under a number of aliases including Sumach, Randy Johnson, Plant Lyphe, Kilowattz, Masters of The Universe, and most recently, Gonjasufi around the Los Angeles area since 1994.
"That's the callus. How can you not be in pain? It ain't about getting past that sh*t. It's about growing into it. I peeled through all these layers to get to the core. I channeled all the misunderstanding and misery and torment—that's what it is, torment—into this," Gonjasufi revealed within a statement issued along with his soon forthcoming Warp Records follow-up to his untitled Hit+Run 777 7-inch recorded with fellow Brainfeeder affiliate Ras_G, CALLUS; "written and recorded over four years, split between Las Vegas and Gonjasufi's home in the California desert, CALLUS is arguably the musician's most soul-baring and cathartic collection," which seems to have been a rather self-reflective album creation process wherein Valentine was forced to embrace his inner feelings of hurt and anger, channeling them to create something eerily beautiful. "Maniac Depressant" is our first full-length preview of CALLUS since Sumach's self-produced baseball-themed 2011 solo effort, The Ninth Inning EP. It's a feedback-driven stripped down affair wherein he painfully croons, "Once in a while I feel I'll krack. Once in a while I feel I can. Once in a while I feel I can't... I'm a manic depressant." CALLUS is currently available for pre-order in 2-LP, CD, and digital formats from Warp Records subsidiary Bleep ahead of its fast approaching August 19th world-wide release.