Hassan Abou Alam Drops Dystopian Club EP 'Tarnished' on Casa Voyager

Cairo-based producer Hassan Abou Alam returns with new EP ‘Tarnished’, released on Moroccan imprint Casa Voyager, a long-awaited follow-up to his feature on the label’s ‘Data+Press’ compilation. The record is a patchwork of four dystopian club cuts that highlight Abou Alam’s distinctive sound design and sharp industrial edge in a new colour.

Right from the title track, ‘Tarnished’ plunges us into a terrain of metallic percussion and coarse textures that feels both visceral and architectural. The kick-drum hits heavy, the basslines rattle like scaffolding poles in an empty lot or an underground warehouse in Berlin, and breakbeats scrape against industrial textures like machinery barely holding together. Yet beneath the abrasive nature of the sonic structure, there is a kind of brutal beauty that blossoms in small snippets of electronica, that feels like a grey zone between Brutalismus’ anti-techno style and Hassan’s intricate precision.

On another stand-out cut, ‘Handookh’, the production opens up a slightly different angle. The drums remain razor-sharp, but there are spaces of echoes, latent atmospheric textures and subtle tension brewing that give the track (or perhaps you) room to breathe. It’s less of a breakneck rhythm and more of a form of organised chaos imbued with bass-heavy manipulation of tabla percussion that makes you wanna bounce in your seat. The remix version of the track, however, leans even harder into unyielding percussive bass, courtesy of sound engineer OCB.

‘Tarnished’ refutes commercialism, revelling in the raw under-structure and the geometry beneath the groove. Every time you listen, you recognise a detail you missed before, a buried snare, a subtler hiss, a layering of noise that only registers after repeat spins–which is something rare in today’s electronic landscape that very few artists can master. And perhaps that is what makes Hassan Abou Alam one of the most exciting producers of our time.