After seemingly forever, the man of many styles Gramatik has finally released “The Age of Reason”, his latest 15-song offering. 2013 was an extremely busy year for Gramatik, as he left Pretty Lights Music, formed his own label Lowtemp, began new projects such as Exmag and Grizmatik, and appeared to never stop touring (I’m pretty sure he’s still touring as I type…) With teases like “Bluestep” and “You Don’t Understand” having been dropped eons ago, fans of Gramatik’s unique funk-meets-dubstep-meets-blues style can finally rejoice.
“The Age of Reason” is appropriately named, because in my opinion, Gramatik has changed the game with this album. Often Gramatik and Pretty Lights are spoken about in similar contexts (despite the fact they used to be label mates); while Pretty Lights’ ‘A Color Map of the Sun’ made organic instrumentation the focus of his album, Gramatik’s ‘Age of Reason’ keeps production and manipulation on a high level. This is the hallmark of Gramatik: his use of “natural sounding” instrumentation blended with production is so effortlessly done, you may not even notice a dichotomy. Appearances from Cherub, Exmag, Eric Krasno of Soulive, and more make this an album rich in variety and imagination. I would dare say never before has an artist so perfectly melded so many genres together. Soul, funk, blues, disco, r&b, hip-hop, dubstep, electro, trap…I could go on. Point is, it’s all there, like the long island iced tea of electronic music.
One could attempt to name favorite songs, but due to the variety and collective uniqueness of this album, that would be doing a disservice to Gramatik. WRR suggestion: download the entire album for free, kick back, prepare to enter The Age of Reason.
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