- Ayman Rostom's sampling prowess is on full display for his latest track as The Maghreban, "Output." As the story goes: "[Rostom] found a bunch of old cassette tapes at his dad's house. One said 'Alex July 84' on it. This tape was from Alexandria, Egypt, in the summer of 1984. It had some interesting music recorded on it." From this relic the former hip-hop head cobbled together a sample bank that sounds more like the source material's time than place. Drums smack with gated reverb, synths are stilted and flat, and there's a vocal stab that sounds like Electric Café-era Kraftwerk.
"Output" is nostalgic, but Rostom takes these memories to weird places. The beat trips and skips to its off-kilter groove, which is accentuated by fat, grimy bass notes and top lines that sneak through on tip-toes. In the background, Rostom twiddles with knobs and filters, giving his track the haunted edge a reanimated monster like this should have. Any oddball DJ set that reaches the neighborhood of 120 BPM could have campy fun with "Output."