Shahzad Ismaily cannot regulate his body temperature. When he was a month old, his parents rushed him to the hospital because he was beyond feverish and struggling to breathe. “The hardest part of playing music with people is a kind of nonverbal, total empathetic awareness of how another person feels, how a room feels. I’m moving with the world around me. His Brooklyn studio, Figure 8, remains an affordable and inclusive hub for experimental musicians, even as Ismaily becomes a marquee session player.

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Persons: Shahzad Ismaily, ectodermal, Ismaily, “, I’m, he’s, Bonnie “ Prince ” Billy, Yoko Ono Organizations: Brooklyn Locations: Netherlands, New York