- I met Ismail Hosny last year when I was writing a feature on Cairo's VENT club. He's part of the VENT-affiliated Kairo is Koming collective, and co-runs the Epic101 Studio with music partner Hussein Sherbini. When I interviewed him, he told me about a recent residency he'd undertaken in Gothenburg, during which he'd been inspired by noise music and access to vintage synths. The Odd One Out EP, Hosny's first substantial release under solo alias Ismael, contains some of the fruits of that period.
Made of off-cuts from a forthcoming album, the EP shuffles through a selection of intriguing ideas. There's winsome synth sketches "I" and "II," the former overlaid with hiss and lapping water, the latter a dust cloud of glittering melodies. "III" and "IV" take a gothic turn, conveying angst without getting bogged down in seriousness. The remainder of the EP returns to the more stable, beat-led electronica Hosny has explored in the past. Both "V" and "VI" pivot from quiet, bedroom introspection into woozy euphoria. It's a less adventurous sound—the likes of Mount Kimbie were doing it half a decade ago—but works well as a counterbalance on an impressively diverse EP.
Tracklist01. I
02. II
03. III
04. IV
05. V
06. VI