WARN-U

Raised in Kuwait but now based in New York, Fatima al Qadiri has a darkened vision of her childhood. Inspired by the traditional Islamic chants she grew up surrounded by, she creates choirs using nothing but her own voice, twisted into shapes and sounds that more closely resemble taffy-pulled electronics rather than something that came from a living throat. The sound reverberates around through the head, rumbling down into your chest where it fills you like a hit of the blackest hash. Title track 'WARN-U' is built upon a lurking beat that pulses in and out, the climax to a blurred-out rave…or the heartbeat of something ancient and unknowable. Before the last notes have had a chance to fade into the void,'Jemsheed' washes over the ears in a wave. The uses of oh-so-brief silences broken by the thick bass of a repeated 'AHHHHZZIIIIIZIIII' masterfully pull at you, a saw-toothed weight draped over the neck until the head is nodding in a blissed-out trance. Humming on its heels come the dense vocals of'Shaytan'. They approach in lunges and bounds, slavering with soul-seeking eagerness before enclosing the ears in a cosmic crush.

But now there is a light, an outside force. LA production duo Nguzunguzu have taken all three songs, chopped them up, and created a megamix of truly global club. While the sinister atmosphere still drips from each refixed version, there's also something hungrier, rippling with adrenaline. The initial piece slices up 'Jemsheed' and adds pounding tribal drums, creating the feeling of exhiliration, of rising from an earthbound prison. 'Shaytan' is given spiralling synth stabs and a hectic UK garage beat, dousing it with an echo of running feet on rain-soaked concrete. A gunshot explodes before the opening hums of 'WARN-U' kick in, and are then buried under a clattering breakstep beat. It's the closing piece in a religious ritual that firmly establishes Fatima al Qadiri as one of my favorite experimental musicians…although, in this case, the term 'artist' is far closer to the truth.

WARN-U