Fatima Al Qadiri At Juno Download

Review: Combining the experimental synth tendencies of peers like Ital, Oneohtrix Point never and Laurel Halo with the kind of R&B influenced bass music of producers like Kingdom, Fatima Al Qadiri stood out from the crowd of footwork bandwagon jumpers with her Genre-Specific Experience EP for New York's UNO last year. She returns here on Kingdom's Fade To Mind imprint with the Desert Strike EP. Despite the name it would seem to be video game war being referenced; the whole thing bristles with the 16-bit shimmer of early grime. "Ghost Raid" combines stray gunshots with distant square waves and arid melody, while "Oil Well" combines eastern tones with booming toms and angelic vocals, and "Hydra" adds steel drums to dramatic symphonic sweeps. Somewhere between dance music and computer simulation, Desert Strike is one of Fade To Mind's most intriguing releases to date.

Review: Perhaps better known to most as Tri Angle artist Ayshay, Fatima Al Qadiri's EP of skittery, steel drum-led beats and bass was an undersung highlight of New York based label UNO last year. Here it gets the remix treatment - and we're not lying when we say some of the global bass scene's biggest names have gotten involved. Night Slugs fam Girl Unit and Kingdom, Hyperdub's Ikonika, Fade to Mind's Nguzunguzu, Dubbel Dutch and footwork titan DJ Rashad all get involved, and the results are pretty spectacular. Girl Unit's take on "How Can I Resist" you is like hyperkinetic club music put into an echo chamber, DJ Rashad's remix is spindly and rickety, Kingdom turns in a fantastic cut that riffs on 80s electro but perhaps the most striking is Ikonika's dark, rumbling rework of "D-Medley" which sounds like nothing else.