“Exotica”, he calls it, and to be fair this five-track EP from the Glasgow-based producer couldn’t be more aptly titled.
Lead track ‘Exotic Calls’ also gives the EP and ‘genre’ its name, and is appropriately an amalgam of sweeping filmic themes and cleverly-placed effects, all set over a toe-tapping beat which builds to a choral climax.
There’s a danger of an anti-climax following perhaps, but Kusht instead goes off on a different direction, east in fact, a ticking rhythm propelling another insidious movie theme born somewhere between St Petersburg and Ulan Bator. (It’s worth mentioning that on headphones this is not for the easily distracted!)
If we’re still talking geography, we seem to come full circle on the release’s remaining three tracks’ influences, India and the Middle East, which seem to become more ambient as the EP progresses. Though to be fair, although travel broadens the mind it can be exhausting, but what better way to chill and recover?