Good music rarely comes from staring at Tumblr as though it were a telescope. Most Internet movements perish within a single press cycle because they lack a core or any cohesive ideas. They’re usually an unbaked synthesis of loose aesthetic cues being reblogged until no one likes it anymore. Beyond high-powered semi-legal narcotics, Los Angeles has been churning out excellent and scarcely definable artists over the last several years because the famously decentralized city has stealthily produced several centers of gravity. If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you don’t need me to recite the litany. There is room for Thundercats and Moses Sumneys, Frank Ocean and Miguel, Sa-Ra and Madlib, Flying Lotus and Kamasi Washington, all rocking shows on the regular. Godfrey at Large exists in this hover-converted tradition — the one originally forged by Arthur Lee, Randy California, and Shuggie Otis.
Previously operating under the name, The Edison Electrics, Dustin Warren trafficked in psychedelic soul. There is some of this in his Godfrey at Large project, along with jazz fusion, gospel, guitar rock, beat music, and a bunch of genre tags that are mostly useful for Soundcloud search. He describes, “Creatures of Habit,” his debut single under the new alias, “a reflection of love, forgiveness, peace, and God.” The construction reveals fearlessness and meticulous design. The singing contains the emotional vulnerability of someone aware that he might never find the remedy that he’s searching for.
“Creatures of Habit” is Doxology with hand drums, background vocal wails, ambient chirps, cascading guitars, and soul music. But not soul as bound by conventional cues, but the innate impulse that guides all hymns able to cut through the noise. It manages to be both refulgent and raw. And as far as first records go, few are more devastating.
