GAIKA - War Island

“People describe my records as the sound of the memory of the club as opposed to being really direct dance floor music… People tend to come to me because they want all of this cinematic, ambient stuff in their records, and the more that I've grown as a composer, I've really leaned into that.”

— GAIKA

A sophisticated yet easy-to-use library of colossal range, these rich, complex sounds have been meticulously curated, deconstructed and developed from a range of analog synths, hardware and experimental processing techniques by GAIKA and producer and sound designer, Felix Lee. The library offers eight controls, a key feature being the dynamics fader, taking you from the reverberant quality of the processed signal up to the immediate direct impact of the original recording, offering significant creative control. To create this processed signal, every sample was played back through a massive sound system in a large acoustic space at London’s Somerset House, and re-recorded, in order to create space and depth around each sound and provide a new expansive and cinematic perspective.

Capturing the intense, industrial quality of GAIKA’s particular sonic world, this comprehensive toolkit is inspired by sounds GAIKA heard growing up in South London - conjuring its rich cultural backdrop of idiosyncratic musical styles, from gothic hip hop to soundsystem culture and classical tendencies as well as retro-futuristic influences, to produce a range of intense, abstract atmospheres resonating with earth-shattering depth — developed amidst the dystopian backdrop of London in lockdown and a result of being forced to reflect on the state of the city in the wider context of the world.

“I want people to just create new music, whether using the library to score in a more experimental way, or trying to push the boundaries of what they know without necessarily investing thousands and thousands into all of this hardware…”

— GAIKA

This venture is part of a larger scale anthology of work by GAIKA also known as War Island — encompassing a record, sample library, an installation, film, writing, and technology — which speaks to the universal experience of modern existence absorbed by and inspired by urban sprawl, in a sharp assessment of the state of post-pandemic Britain and its place in a changed world.

42 presets, split into 6 sections

— Pads (5) Moody, metallic, and heavy darkwave synth drones made from a range of analog synths including Matrix 6, Matrix 12, JP 8000, Lyra 6 and countless others

— Basses (7) Known for massive, jaw-dropping, villainous bass, GAIKA provides a crunchy low-end to complement the nuance of this idiosyncratic sound domain

— Leads (12) Manipulated and processed tones conjure a dystopian backdrop whilst providing infinite capabilities for layering your unique sonic footprint

— Atmosphere (7) Capturing a unique air of disquiet and metropolitan malaise, these blissfully discordant offerings set up an unsettling atmosphere

— Drums (6) Punchy, layered drums made from old school drum machines with extensive processing, to create dance, rap and techno sensibilities within a classical framework to achieve vast rhythmic possibilities

— Vocals (5) Inspired by jungle music, these glitchy and melodic vocal samples capture the dystopian sound of a retro yet modern urban landscape

— Presented in Spitfire Audio’s award-winning, dedicated plugin — compatible with any DAW

— 8 controls, providing a wealth of complex sonic possibilities : Expression, Dynamics (processed signal), Reverb, Attack, Release, Chorus, Flanger and Phaser— engineered to offer a wide range of detailed sound-sculpting possibilities within a single patch, so it sounds like you

— The dynamics slider controls an in-built processed signal, curated by GAIKA, starting with the space of the processed signal, and fading to the intensity of the original dry recording as you push the fader up

— Seven bespoke IR reverbs, from Kiln to Church Balcony

— Velocity sensitive for varying tones

— 2.1 GB

“My aim was to create the same feeling of excitement from a sound library that I get from a physical instrument... I want people to get truly lost in the worlds I build, and for that journeying to trigger internal investigations beyond the moment of encounter.”

— GAIKA

A self-described ‘hard-to-place person’, GAIKA is an experimental rapper, producer, writer, visual and performance artist from South London. His debut album, Basic Volume, and his first art installation, SYSTEM, a vast experiential audio-visual sculpture, were launched simultaneously in 2018. Both projects draw directly on his Caribbean heritage. While Basic Volume is an elegy to GAIKA’s late father, a Windrush-generation immigrant, SYSTEM marked the 70th anniversary of Windrush by exploring the impact of migration on music in the UK, sound system culture and the history of the Notting Hill Carnival. GAIKA’s 2021 installation, Zemel, at the British Art Show, was a smaller-scale relative of SYSTEM, a shrine to his uncle and other Windrush-generation deportees.

GAIKA’s rich sound encapsulates the cultural melting pot that is London, and more specifically the bustling creativity of his native Brixton. Reflective and introspective yet abrasive and rhythmic, his music represents an aesthetic uncommon amongst composers in neighbouring genres. His music has been said to evoke “the sound of the memory of the club… what’s going around in your head once you’ve left, as opposed to being direct dance floor music.”