Giza

Gatekeeper adds a thick branch to the witch house genre with 2011’s *Giza* EP. The opening song, “Chains,” kickstarts with a motorcycle’s engine rumbling. As it rides into the sunset, old keyboard tones and drum-machine beats strobe together like an early-\'90s Nitzer Ebb tune, replete with biker-movie samples and an eerie whistle reminiscent of a spaghetti western. The following “Storm Column” plays like the soundtrack to a bygone horror movie, implementing samples that are pitched down into abstract growls (à la Cabaret Voltaire). Elements of \'70s krautrock seep into the title track, as icy synths recall moments of Vangelis’ score for *Blade Runner* (though Gatekeeper’s campy approach to this appropriation treads hilariously closer to the theme song from *Knight Rider*). “Oracle” closes with fluttering analog electronics that sound like the dawn of the 21st century never happened. While the kitschy bleeps and blips hark back to a time when kids blew their allowances at the arcade, there’s also a loving nod to John Carpenter’s 1978 *Halloween* score.

Recalling Cabaret Voltaire and the darker strains of Detroit techno, Gatekeeper offer an eerie and entrancing slab of carefully reconstituted 80s synths.