#58 Feat. Staff Picks in Bass / Club

Hassan Abou Alam is next to step up to the unconventional Nerve Collect label with six tracks of futuristic club-ready chaos. The finely crafted EP arrives in August and comes on 12 vinyl and via all digital platforms. Hassan Abou Alam has established himself as one of Egypts most innovative underground musicians over the last 10+ years. His music is a meeting of disparate worlds - organic and synthetic designs, digital and analogue tools, the traditional and the futuristic, and it has come on the likes of YUKU, Rhythm Section, Banoffee Pies and Casa Voyager. His versatile sound pulls apart existing genres and reconstructs them as something entirely new. Opener 3asabi is a stylish sonic assault with thumping rhythms and trippy oscillations that will get any dance floor bouncing. Its fun yet functional, serious yet seductive and Basha Ft. ZIAD ZAZA, Ismail Nosrat & Aly B is another kinetic fusion of hand claps and complex drum funk, Egyptian vocal gymnastics and punchy bass. Ghalat has lurching drums and plunging bass driving on beneath mangled synths, odd vocalisations and percussive splatters drawn from a unique sound palette. The drilling low ends of Khalsana Ft ZIAD ZAZA are offset by fluttering percussive details up top while spare but booming kicks shake every bone in your body and the bassline devastates. There is no let up on Mesh Mafhoom which is a ritualistic workout with moments of melancholic synth soul shining through the jumble of tin-pot percussion and crashing hits. Closer Zein is more body-popping brilliance that channels ancient spirits into warped synths and rhythms so complex they melt the mind. Hassan Abou Alams blurring of the lines between the real and the imagined is second to none on this EP. Its a sub-heavy mix of the human voice, machine-made sounds and inventive rhythms that make for something new, weird and wonderful.

Hassan Abou Alam, Aly B, Ismail Nosrat, ZIAD ZAZA