With Inji, the 2015 debut of his LA Priest project, Sam Eastgate bent his eccentric pop styles around Prince-like grooves and wobbly '80s-tinged production. After a similar approach the next year with Soft Hair, a collaborative project between Eastgate and Connan Mockasin, LA Priest fell silent for a while and Eastgate invested some time into designing and building his own drum machine. Second album Gene tones down some of the intensity of Inji, with Eastgate's tendencies towards groove and slippery pop hooks finding more subdued and complexly arranged voicings. Instead of the chunky low end and outbursts of fuzz that defined earlier songs, Gene floats by in a series of gently presented yet intricately designed songs. Album opener "Beginning" is probably the most immediate and poppy moment of the album, with Eastgate's vocal melodies jumping into dramatic falsetto as his homemade beats and liquid guitar lines gel into a friendly wash of light, mid-tempoed funk. "Rubber Sky" is similar, with stacked vocal harmonies and mismatched styles of pastoral songwriting and good-natured synth funk recalling Arthur Russell's oddball disco production style. Every turn the song makes is unexpected, but Eastgate makes sure to never let his arrangements become jarring. This becomes the modus operandi throughout Gene. The Ariel Pink-esque guitar tones of instrumental piece "Peace Lily" stand out from the rest of the album, but the song is brief enough to not rock the boat. "Monochrome" builds from rain sounds and acoustic percussion into an itchy, clangorous storm of instruments yet never becomes indulgently noisy. Eastgate pulls back into softer reflections before the song drowns in its harsher elements, recalling the kind of controlled excitement that Caribou excels at. Lighter and more accessible than the earlier LA Priest material, Gene makes more space for the listener to get lost in Eastgate's wild perspectives. Like the obtuse artists that LA Priest takes notes from, the best moments on Gene come when these perspectives are deeply inward looking and warmly welcoming at the same time. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi

1		Beginning
2		Rubber Sky
3		What Moves
4		Peace Lily
5		Open My Eyes
6		Sudden Thing
7		Monochrome
8		What Do You See
9		Kissing of the Weeds
10		Black Smoke
11		Ain't No Love Affair
12		What Moves
13		Beginning
14		Rubber Sky

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