Outtallectuals has maintained a long-standing reputation for purveying exploratory music. Withoutside, the musical alias of Brooklynite Carey Clayton, is a fairly new project with an aptitude for ambient, phosphorescent music that now finds a home with Outtallectuals. His most recent endeavor, Istanbul, is an absolute gem of an EP, built from the ground up via a hardcore, back-to-the-roots methodology. Istanbul is composed mostly through the sampling of foley sounds from its namesake city, creating a culturally-fused vibrance that is its fundamental attraction.

“Beating feet for sampling meat” is an time-tested method to collect the wondrous textures and atmospheres of the surrounding world. Utilizing the urban sprawl of Istanbul to create a vast assortment of foley and musical material, Clayton left no stone unturned in his quest to capture the aura of this old-world metropolis. Street musicians, vendor bellows and business chimes, crashing waves smacking against port-bound ships, and a cornucopia of percussive trinkets and happy aural accidents populate each track. Accentuating the bevy of sampled gold, Withoutside also flexes multi-instrumental talent, laying down phrases from guitars, basses, synthesizers, additional percussion, and a particularly airy Cura saz. Vivacious undercurrents carry the attitude of the EP along sweeping mind-states and massive aural vistas, capturing not just the sound of Istanbul, but the bravado of this historic city as well.

Withoutside demonstrates remarkable creative vision coupled with brilliant execution, easily earning himself a place in the formidable Outtallectuals catalog. With skin in the game for eight years now, the UK-based Outtallectuals team has proven time and again that they have more than one finger on the pulse of experimental music, with over 90 international artists spanning the sonic spectrum. Istanbul couldn’t be more on par with the label’s sonic dimensions (or lack thereof). Keep Withoutside on your radar. A release such as this surely demarcates a lush, musically-pioneering future.

FOLLOW Withoutside: Soundcloud / Spotify