Featuring a startling guest turn from Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar, Fatima Al Qadiri's new EP develops the themes explored on 'Medieval Femme', setting opulent vocals against willowy, plasticated electronics.
2021's 'Medieval Femme' felt like a carefully decorative interweaving of each strand of Al Qadiri's artistic practice. Using Medieval poetry as her inspiration, the veteran Hyperdub polymath was able to invoke "a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden", employing a sonic palette that blended her early vaporous post-club experimentation and her latter day work as an in-demand film composer.
'Gumar' expands the plot, letting it grow into new shapes with the assistance of the eponymous singer, whose name means "moon" in Arabic. The duo's touchstone for this fleeting set of lamentations is the traditional music both grew up with, and the music Gumar was formally trained in as a teenager. Piercing in ways that feel almost inhuman, it's a body of songs that considers the pain of unrequited love - a familiar topic for anyone who's spent time poring over Arabic music and poetry.
Gumar's heartfelt vocals provide the record with its emotional anchor, but Al Qadiri's compositional restraint and precise engineering gifts the songs exactly what they need in order to soar. Finely pinched strings and orchestral thuds furnish a backdrop of disquieting polish. We know these sounds - we've been well prepped by the last decade plus of streaming drama and inverted Hollywood excess - and Al Qadiri uses our preconceptions to toy with our emotions like a puppetmaster. If big budget Hollywood hacks like Hans Zimmer and his team of lackeys can belch out Orientalist noodles to spec within a moment's notice, Al Qadiri is asking us to rethink what these sonic motifs might mean when re-appropriated and used to hint at deeper, darker truths.
'Motik (Your Waves)' takes a different approach, harking back to Al Qadiri's gummiest early material (think 'Vatican Vibes') using acidic synths to suggest well-lit neoteric rooms with baffling sacred geometry. Gumar's vocals rise and fall in classical curves, shocking sadness with majestic romance and slicing into love with loss's razor. Al Qadiri approaches the song construction with the tension control of a DJ, filtering it to muted silence and pulling it back to a crushing crescendo. She leads us out with 'Meriem', a quiet meditation that gives us a moment to consider everything we just heard.
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Featuring a startling guest turn from Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar, Fatima Al Qadiri's new EP develops the themes explored on 'Medieval Femme', setting opulent vocals against willowy, plasticated electronics.
2021's 'Medieval Femme' felt like a carefully decorative interweaving of each strand of Al Qadiri's artistic practice. Using Medieval poetry as her inspiration, the veteran Hyperdub polymath was able to invoke "a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden", employing a sonic palette that blended her early vaporous post-club experimentation and her latter day work as an in-demand film composer.
'Gumar' expands the plot, letting it grow into new shapes with the assistance of the eponymous singer, whose name means "moon" in Arabic. The duo's touchstone for this fleeting set of lamentations is the traditional music both grew up with, and the music Gumar was formally trained in as a teenager. Piercing in ways that feel almost inhuman, it's a body of songs that considers the pain of unrequited love - a familiar topic for anyone who's spent time poring over Arabic music and poetry.
Gumar's heartfelt vocals provide the record with its emotional anchor, but Al Qadiri's compositional restraint and precise engineering gifts the songs exactly what they need in order to soar. Finely pinched strings and orchestral thuds furnish a backdrop of disquieting polish. We know these sounds - we've been well prepped by the last decade plus of streaming drama and inverted Hollywood excess - and Al Qadiri uses our preconceptions to toy with our emotions like a puppetmaster. If big budget Hollywood hacks like Hans Zimmer and his team of lackeys can belch out Orientalist noodles to spec within a moment's notice, Al Qadiri is asking us to rethink what these sonic motifs might mean when re-appropriated and used to hint at deeper, darker truths.
'Motik (Your Waves)' takes a different approach, harking back to Al Qadiri's gummiest early material (think 'Vatican Vibes') using acidic synths to suggest well-lit neoteric rooms with baffling sacred geometry. Gumar's vocals rise and fall in classical curves, shocking sadness with majestic romance and slicing into love with loss's razor. Al Qadiri approaches the song construction with the tension control of a DJ, filtering it to muted silence and pulling it back to a crushing crescendo. She leads us out with 'Meriem', a quiet meditation that gives us a moment to consider everything we just heard.
Featuring a startling guest turn from Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar, Fatima Al Qadiri's new EP develops the themes explored on 'Medieval Femme', setting opulent vocals against willowy, plasticated electronics.
2021's 'Medieval Femme' felt like a carefully decorative interweaving of each strand of Al Qadiri's artistic practice. Using Medieval poetry as her inspiration, the veteran Hyperdub polymath was able to invoke "a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden", employing a sonic palette that blended her early vaporous post-club experimentation and her latter day work as an in-demand film composer.
'Gumar' expands the plot, letting it grow into new shapes with the assistance of the eponymous singer, whose name means "moon" in Arabic. The duo's touchstone for this fleeting set of lamentations is the traditional music both grew up with, and the music Gumar was formally trained in as a teenager. Piercing in ways that feel almost inhuman, it's a body of songs that considers the pain of unrequited love - a familiar topic for anyone who's spent time poring over Arabic music and poetry.
Gumar's heartfelt vocals provide the record with its emotional anchor, but Al Qadiri's compositional restraint and precise engineering gifts the songs exactly what they need in order to soar. Finely pinched strings and orchestral thuds furnish a backdrop of disquieting polish. We know these sounds - we've been well prepped by the last decade plus of streaming drama and inverted Hollywood excess - and Al Qadiri uses our preconceptions to toy with our emotions like a puppetmaster. If big budget Hollywood hacks like Hans Zimmer and his team of lackeys can belch out Orientalist noodles to spec within a moment's notice, Al Qadiri is asking us to rethink what these sonic motifs might mean when re-appropriated and used to hint at deeper, darker truths.
'Motik (Your Waves)' takes a different approach, harking back to Al Qadiri's gummiest early material (think 'Vatican Vibes') using acidic synths to suggest well-lit neoteric rooms with baffling sacred geometry. Gumar's vocals rise and fall in classical curves, shocking sadness with majestic romance and slicing into love with loss's razor. Al Qadiri approaches the song construction with the tension control of a DJ, filtering it to muted silence and pulling it back to a crushing crescendo. She leads us out with 'Meriem', a quiet meditation that gives us a moment to consider everything we just heard.
Featuring a startling guest turn from Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar, Fatima Al Qadiri's new EP develops the themes explored on 'Medieval Femme', setting opulent vocals against willowy, plasticated electronics.
2021's 'Medieval Femme' felt like a carefully decorative interweaving of each strand of Al Qadiri's artistic practice. Using Medieval poetry as her inspiration, the veteran Hyperdub polymath was able to invoke "a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden", employing a sonic palette that blended her early vaporous post-club experimentation and her latter day work as an in-demand film composer.
'Gumar' expands the plot, letting it grow into new shapes with the assistance of the eponymous singer, whose name means "moon" in Arabic. The duo's touchstone for this fleeting set of lamentations is the traditional music both grew up with, and the music Gumar was formally trained in as a teenager. Piercing in ways that feel almost inhuman, it's a body of songs that considers the pain of unrequited love - a familiar topic for anyone who's spent time poring over Arabic music and poetry.
Gumar's heartfelt vocals provide the record with its emotional anchor, but Al Qadiri's compositional restraint and precise engineering gifts the songs exactly what they need in order to soar. Finely pinched strings and orchestral thuds furnish a backdrop of disquieting polish. We know these sounds - we've been well prepped by the last decade plus of streaming drama and inverted Hollywood excess - and Al Qadiri uses our preconceptions to toy with our emotions like a puppetmaster. If big budget Hollywood hacks like Hans Zimmer and his team of lackeys can belch out Orientalist noodles to spec within a moment's notice, Al Qadiri is asking us to rethink what these sonic motifs might mean when re-appropriated and used to hint at deeper, darker truths.
'Motik (Your Waves)' takes a different approach, harking back to Al Qadiri's gummiest early material (think 'Vatican Vibes') using acidic synths to suggest well-lit neoteric rooms with baffling sacred geometry. Gumar's vocals rise and fall in classical curves, shocking sadness with majestic romance and slicing into love with loss's razor. Al Qadiri approaches the song construction with the tension control of a DJ, filtering it to muted silence and pulling it back to a crushing crescendo. She leads us out with 'Meriem', a quiet meditation that gives us a moment to consider everything we just heard.
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Featuring a startling guest turn from Kuwaiti vocalist Gumar, Fatima Al Qadiri's new EP develops the themes explored on 'Medieval Femme', setting opulent vocals against willowy, plasticated electronics.
2021's 'Medieval Femme' felt like a carefully decorative interweaving of each strand of Al Qadiri's artistic practice. Using Medieval poetry as her inspiration, the veteran Hyperdub polymath was able to invoke "a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden", employing a sonic palette that blended her early vaporous post-club experimentation and her latter day work as an in-demand film composer.
'Gumar' expands the plot, letting it grow into new shapes with the assistance of the eponymous singer, whose name means "moon" in Arabic. The duo's touchstone for this fleeting set of lamentations is the traditional music both grew up with, and the music Gumar was formally trained in as a teenager. Piercing in ways that feel almost inhuman, it's a body of songs that considers the pain of unrequited love - a familiar topic for anyone who's spent time poring over Arabic music and poetry.
Gumar's heartfelt vocals provide the record with its emotional anchor, but Al Qadiri's compositional restraint and precise engineering gifts the songs exactly what they need in order to soar. Finely pinched strings and orchestral thuds furnish a backdrop of disquieting polish. We know these sounds - we've been well prepped by the last decade plus of streaming drama and inverted Hollywood excess - and Al Qadiri uses our preconceptions to toy with our emotions like a puppetmaster. If big budget Hollywood hacks like Hans Zimmer and his team of lackeys can belch out Orientalist noodles to spec within a moment's notice, Al Qadiri is asking us to rethink what these sonic motifs might mean when re-appropriated and used to hint at deeper, darker truths.
'Motik (Your Waves)' takes a different approach, harking back to Al Qadiri's gummiest early material (think 'Vatican Vibes') using acidic synths to suggest well-lit neoteric rooms with baffling sacred geometry. Gumar's vocals rise and fall in classical curves, shocking sadness with majestic romance and slicing into love with loss's razor. Al Qadiri approaches the song construction with the tension control of a DJ, filtering it to muted silence and pulling it back to a crushing crescendo. She leads us out with 'Meriem', a quiet meditation that gives us a moment to consider everything we just heard.