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Read the news of the day in less than 10 minutes — not that we’re counting.
OddKidOut might be young, but he’s been working on his craft for a minute.
The 21-year-old Drexel student met up with Billy Penn ahead of the release of Full Circle, his new EP, out today. He worked on the record with local producer Mitch Beer and 1403, a British vocalist.
Butch Serianni has been producing as OddKidOut since his freshman year, when he was just 15. He’s a junior now, and his music has been getting attention from publications like High Snobiety and DJ Mag. But his rhythmic sense goes back further than that.
“My dad saw me air drumming in my car seat when I was a baby,” he said. “I started drumming when I was 6. By the time I was 13 or 14, I was doing just East Coast touring with different artists.”
For Billy Penn, Serianni recorded a live set at the Boom Room, near Kung Fu Necktie. “This was one of the first places I ever played music in in the city, ever,” he said.
From 2011 to 2015, the Kensington recording studio held a weekly jam called Music Church, where a young Serianni used to play. Music Church was one of those nights where musicians would come through, hungry to get on, not really pinned down to a particular genre. It could be rock; it could be hip hop; it could be blues. (Boom Room Founder Gary Dann told Billy Penn that Music Church isn’t over; it’s entered a second phase that’s focused on recording sounds forged in their jam days.) On his new EP, OddKidOut isn’t getting too pinned down either. He explained that he wanted the music to have “Philly neo soul” but also “London grit.”
“We wanted the project to not be one of those things,” he said of the Philly-to-London blend. “We wanted it to be something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.”
OddKidOut is popular for his short vids making beats. He builds music for these clips on his Native Instruments Maschine. The style that you’ll see in this video is different from what you’ll hear on the EP. This set delivers something more uptempo that’ll leave you wondering what the samples are. Serianni described Full Circle as “vibes” music, and that’s apt.
Check out OddKidOut’s set for Billy Penn below:
