Say it with me now: Gloorp. Didn’t that feel good? Still not sure? Maybe this will clear things up: Gloorp ’Em Up, the second release by Philadelphia electro-percussionist Garrett Burke, is a frothy little dance tape in which every rhythm is recorded by hand. Many of them were played on a MIDI controller known as a DrumKAT 3.5, a digital drum kit with small ear-shaped pads that make it look like Mickey Mouse. Between this, an SPD-SX, and other acoustic instrumentation, Burke whisks together bits and bobs from footwork, gabber, acid, and breakbeat, imbuing their clubby rhythms with a blood-pumping pulse without sacrificing the mechanized momentum of a good DJ set.
A high school marching band kid with a drumming resume that includes stints with Mothers and of Montreal, Burke has spent plenty of time behind the kit. But Gloorp ’Em Up gives him a chance to really shred; he brings the same half-organic/half-electronic MIDI meld of fellow Philly cult acts Body Meat and Palm, only dialed into an even more undiluted strain of slamming polyrhythms and gonzo sound effects. There’s hardly even any melodies or samples taking up space—just one skull-rattling fill after another, a daisy-chained string of mulching beats that’s casual, light, and fun as hell.
At a snappy 23 minutes, Gloorp ’Em Up doesn’t waste any time picking up the ball. “Angggry” kicks its footwork-y stride into gear with bouncing bass throbs, a wispy vocal sample weaving its way between the beats like it’s gasping for air. Though a couple other stray voices appear here and there—a vomitous appearance from noise extortionist Morgan Garrett on “Gangggsta,” a phased-out spoken-word passage from poet Myene Trimble-Yanu on “Gunk Body”—they’re all similarly abstracted, used more like extra grease to keep Burke’s water slide nice and slippy. His drums speak for themselves; “Glimpse” ping-pongs up and down with bongo beats that scatter and pop like bubbles, while “Pergggus” works itself into a frenzy of tabla-like footwork triplets that keep maniacally switching up the groove, digging in deeper as the track hurtles toward its climax.
It’s all very low-key, in that special way an album best heard blasting through beat-up car speakers should be. Burke taps into the same goofy energy of Delroy Edwards and Beat Detectives tapes, that wonderfully esoteric zone of DIY lifers committed to club music that once upon a time we used to shrug at and bundle up as “outsider house,” even when the label didn’t totally fit. Gloorp ’Em Up is similarly happy to wiggle through its own world: “Ugggly” makes it halfway through without anything resembling a proper beat, rattling dissonant sounds as if rolling them around inside a big tin can. Then suddenly the floor drops out, a wub-wub-ing bassline starts to seep through the low end, and everything seems to flip upside down. It’s a ridiculous moment—a Gloorp if there ever was one.
