El Mahdy Jr. is an Algerian musician whose tense yet spacious productions combine swirling dub rhythms and heavy bass with field recordings, snippets of radio transmissions, and elements of Turkish, Algerian, and West African music. Born El-Mahdi Rezoug, the artist and his family moved to Istanbul, Turkey during the '90s in order to escape Algeria's civil war. Rezoug became a French-Arabic translator and worked in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Turkey, and Croatia, absorbing the music of each location as well as hip-hop and electronic music from abroad. Generally based in Istanbul, he began releasing dubstep-influenced audio collages in 2013, beginning with full-length The Spirit of Fucked Up Places on Boomarm Nation. In 2014, he collaborated with dubstep producer Gantz on the track "Rising," released on a 12" single by Deep Medi Musik. El Mahdy Jr. released a few more vinyl releases that year, starting with the Raï Dubs 10" on Boomarm Nation, and followed by the "Last Breath" 7" on ZamZam Sounds and the Gasba Grime 12" on Danse Noire. He then released Ghost Tapes, a dark, rainy collage of beats and found recordings, on the Discrepant label in 2015. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi