Listen: Fatima Al Qadiri's 'Desert Strike' EP
Title inspired by a Sega Megadrive Game
Fatima Al Qadiri now lives in New York but grew up in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. Her third EP Desert Strike is named for the Sega Megadrive game Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf that, incredibly, Fatima and her sister played during the years after the war.
The EP harnesses Fatima's experience of terror and dislocation and fuses it with a lushly evocative sonic recount of what her record label describes as the "apocalyptic vision of aerial bombings, air raid sirens, and skies filled with smoke from black oil fires." The first sound on the opening track 'Ghost Raid' is a shot being fired, the blast reverberating deep into the song and melding with the sparse percussion and synthetic beat.
Talking about her days during the Gulf War, Fatima tells Fader "I made this really sad, minor key melody on the keyboard and I played it to myself every day." Desert Strike is a simultaneous homage to early grime sounds and her own visceral output. The EP is out now and you can stream the whole thing, too!
Image via Gawker
Melissa Kenny
