Gonjasufi - Callus (2LP)

Some records feel like they were sandblasted in the desert, then dragged through a busted guitar amp for good measure. Callus fits that image, and it suits Gonjasufi, the San Diego singer, producer, and yogi who has been warping psych, hip-hop, and noise into his own strange gospel since A Sufi and a Killer. By 2016, when Callus landed on Warp, his sound had hardened into something raw and purgative. You can hear the isolation and the grit in every cracked vocal and scorched chord.

If you came up on his early work with Flying Lotus and The Gaslamp Killer, this record might feel like the moment he finally shut the door and locked it. Most of Callus was crafted alone, with guitars buzzing like hornets and drums that stumble rather than strut. The mix is purposefully scarred. Vocals sit low, sometimes clawing their way out of tape hiss. It’s not a “headphone masterpiece” in the audiophile sense. It’s closer to a confession scrawled on a wall, layered with dust and paint thinner.

Gonjasufi has said he needed to make a record that hurt to listen to, and the intent is clear. The songs are short, jagged, and restless, moving from weary chants to bursts of punk energy. “Poltergeist” immediately sets the tone, haunted and clanging, like a room full of broken cymbals. “Maniac Depressant” follows with a sickly swing, his voice scraping against the beat until it frays. Guitars carry more weight here than on his earlier releases, but they don’t do the usual psych-rock swirl. They grind, they choke, they spit. Imagine a crate of dub 45s melted on the dashboard, then looped on a dying four-track.

That abrasion would mean less if the writing didn’t cut through it. Under the noise, he’s still chasing melody and mantra, repeating lines until they feel like spells. The rhythms nod to hip-hop, but the sense of time is loose, almost ritualistic. You get flashes of East African scales, dusty folk, and old San Diego backyard shows, all refracted through the Mojave glare. It’s a lineage that makes sense if you’ve followed his orbit, yet on Callus it coheres in a new way. The record doesn’t try to please. It tries to purge.

The context helped critics tune in. Reviews in places like The Guardian, Pitchfork, and The Quietus keyed on the album’s ferocity and the way its sonics echoed the political and personal heaviness of that moment. You can feel that heaviness in the pauses and the clatter. He’ll let a phrase hang, then answer it with a cough of feedback, as if language and noise are wrestling for the same breath. It’s confrontational, but not performatively so. It sounds like a person working through it, alone in a dry room with the blinds half closed.

Spin it on wax and the intent sharpens. The Callus vinyl pressing on Warp preserves that gauzy, bruised low end, which adds body to the quieter pieces and turns the louder ones into a gust of sand. If you’re crate-digging in a Melbourne record store, or scrolling through vinyl records Australia late at night, this is the kind of sleeper you want to snag while it’s still around. It sits perfectly next to battered post-punk LPs and sunburned psych beats. And if you collect Gonjasufi albums on vinyl, Callus is the necessary dark star in the set. It’s the one you pull when you want the room to stop making small talk.

There’s also a strange comfort in how handmade it feels. You can imagine cables on a concrete floor, amps humming, a battered mic that should have been retired years ago. No one cleaned up the edges, because the edges are the message. Even when a hook peeks through, it comes with splinters. That choice keeps the album from aging into background haze. Put it on and it demands your attention.

Callus won’t convert everyone, and that’s fine. Not every record needs to be a living room crowd-pleaser. For fans who kept faith after A Sufi and a Killer and MU.ZZ.LE, this is the hard-won payoff. It shows Gonjasufi still pushing against his own boundaries, still digging for the nerve under the skin. If you’re looking to buy Gonjasufi records online, this is the one to prioritize. The experience of Gonjasufi vinyl is all about texture, and Callus is texture set to a heartbeat. Give it time, and it turns its scabs into a kind of balm. Not smooth, not safe, but honest, and sometimes that’s exactly what the shelf needs.