Left-Handed Club by Guido Gamboa

When you think about the most critical, formative pieces of a person’s identity, left handedness typically doesn’t make the list. That didn’t stop experimental artist Guido Gamboa from making Left-Handed Club, a sound collage of quotes, ideas, and aesthetics from creators throughout space and time who primarily wrote with their left hands. Since the left-handed identity marker affects these people’s lives so little, the creators quoted in the album share virtually nothing in common, meaning that the album lacks a rudder as it navigates murky philosophical waters. Sonically, Gamboa continually reintroduces a handful of unidentifiable yet unforgettable samples and sounds, maintaining a more stable sonic identity as the lyrical character of the record spirals out of control. In crafting such a wildly inconsistent voice, Gamboa reveals the impacts of a scattered and unreadable identity, a social-media-fueled condition that I’m actively contributing to right now. You’re going to listen to this album, love it, tell a friend about it, and they’ll be so disconnected from whatever your for you page is showing you that they don’t even have the language to communicate with you about your strange niche interests. But hey, at least you’re both left-handed!