BIO

Make no mistake, Vancouver’s stargazer is yours to relate.

With the focus of a Shaolin monk meditating to The Monks atop a Lain-line summit, Compulsion finds Kim Gray dispatching Sex Wax-scented Dramamine pop to all of us monastic bedroom dwellers sheet-surfin’ the Clearnet’s blue light district. Kim Gray’s Bad Diet album falls into your weekly rotation like maple leaves in Miyazaki moonlight.

Recording on a Tascam 388—and seemingly possessed by the same obsessive forces that drove Joe Meek—Gray and band racked 16-hour days meticulously layering his compulsive ideas from a shack behind The Lido, East Vancouver’s chic psych-pub. Dusty visuals from dustier Westerns on dust-blown VHS looped the process as the band terraformed Compulsion in effects salvaged from semi-functional gear lining the makeshift studio.

Squeezing pink lemonade sonics outta foldable vintage radios and otaku-spoonable Casio soundbanks into studio-tier live compositions might sound like a Flying Lotus Night Flight—after guzzling a fifth of Tago Mago—but we’re betting our doge reserves that Compulsion holds its weight in dream populist currency, kickflips modernity erosion.

Because we’ve observed from behind keyboard as Kim’s talent has ship-shaped the garage fumes that led his first act, The Skinny Kids, to a cult Canadian following (no, not a Fubar-tier cult, what are you some kind of Canuck Scene Investigator?) and alchemized into Perfume on L.A.’s Lollipop Recs. With Compulsion, Kim Gray is firing on all cylinders (remember the car era?); album art by Dustyn Peterman perfectly blotters its wax-and-riff synesthesia.

“Peroxide Blondes” glimmers with the midnite mysticism of a Michael McDonald serenade graced in the phantasm of Bobby Fuller. The virtua-beach vibe of “What’s In A Smile” recalls a session attended by Tom Ze and Kenny Loggins.

For listeners wandering a bad diet of se.xxx, dr.hugs, memes, foodtrucks, what-is-money, REMakes, and janky quadcopter deliveries: drag-and-drop Compulsion into your cart, and let Kim be your guide to happiness.