Fleet-fingered keyboardist Gil Assayas got perhaps his biggest stamp of approval when he was tapped to fill in for Ralph Schuckett on the 2018 reunion tour of Todd Rundgren’s rock group Utopia. And he’s been using the energy generated from those gigs to fuel his latest album Defective Humanity, a flinty collection of elliptical pop tunes and ’70s prog-meets-modern trap instrumentals. Catch him now before he heads out this fall to join Rundgren, Micky Dolenz, and Christopher Cross on their White Album tribute tour this fall.

by Robert Ham