LABEL: Wonderwheel Recordings
ORIGIN: New Orleans via Brooklyn
GENRE: International Psych Rock, Twang Funk Exotica
Gitkin’s music has always lived between places. A lush, intoxicating blend of global soul, surf noir, psychedelic funk, desert blues, and twang, his sound is shaped by the kind of musical cross-pollination that happens in cities where cultures overlap and boundaries blur. Dub echo chambers, deep funk pockets, modal melodies, analog haze, and guitars that slither through the mix like snakes through a desert bazaar all come together in a sound that feels cinematic, mysterious, and deeply human.
New Orleans-based Gitkin, also known as Brian J. Gitkin, is a Grammy-nominated artist and producer renowned for his work with Cedric Burnside, Bab L’ Bluz, Bernard Purdie, Cyril Neville, and Art Neville, as well as the mastermind behind the internationally beloved funk ensemble Pimps Of Joytime. What began as a passion project has grown into a distinctive musical world of its own, with monthly streams surpassing 300,000 and his self-produced albums resonating with listeners across continents.
After years of crafting vocal-driven productions, Gitkin embraced the freedom of letting the guitar speak. “With Gitkin, I bring my love for African, Middle Eastern, and South American music into dialogue with American blues and funk,” he explains. Instrumental music, for him, has never been about genre. It is about feel, atmosphere, and the quiet emotional narratives that unfold without words.
Gitkin has self-produced and recorded much of his catalog in his home studio, building a sound rooted in analog warmth, tape, spring reverb, vintage delay, and a deep love of tone. His albums include Five Star Motel, Safe Passage, Nowhere to Go But Everywhere, Golden Age, and his newest release, Where the South Winds Wail, released in collaboration with Brooklyn-based Wonderwheel Recordings.
Where the South Winds Wail marks a new chapter in the Gitkin story. The album begins less with a riff than with a feeling: fragments of melody drifting through humid New Orleans air, surf twang draped in shadows, blues exotica wandering into the night, and psychedelic cumbia tangled with echoes like an Afro-Amazon juke joint. Recorded largely alone in his New Orleans studio, with Gitkin handling the majority of the instrumentation himself, the record expands his guitar-driven universe while bringing his voice further into the center of the music.
New Orleans has hovered at the edge of Gitkin’s life for decades. Conceived there and returning since childhood, he carries the city’s spirit in a way that feels personal rather than declarative. On Where the South Winds Wail, the city’s presence shows up less as reference and more as atmosphere, a weight in the air, a rhythm in the walls, a sense of mystery that shapes how the music breathes.
In 2022, fueled by mounting streaming momentum and international demand, Gitkin assembled a live touring trio featuring Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Simon Moushabeck on keys, accordion, and percussion, and Cuban-American drummer Washington Duke. Together, the three create a spacious yet explosive live dynamic, weaving hypnotic grooves, desert-tinged melodies, and deep rhythmic interplay into something both transportive and visceral.
Since forming, the trio has toured extensively across the United States and Europe, connecting with enthusiastic audiences in Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, France, and Austria, while also supporting acts including Steel Pulse, Say She She, The Altons, and Thee Sinseers. Live, Gitkin’s music opens up into what he calls “expansive moments,” those times when something intangible takes over, the mood is elevated, and everyone in the room feels it.