Fatima Al Qadiri - Brute (Hyperdub) 2016
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Coming adorned with sleeve art which seems to feature a placid teletubbie creature clothed in the garb of riot police, Brute makes plain its investigation into a passive-aggressive global politic identity hidden behind a friendly facade. Al Qadiri’s work has regularly focused on the liminal spaces opening up between technological evolution and physical reality, the dangerous illusion we’re weaving around us of safety in a world controlled by murderers. “Endzone” begins with a mesh of alarms sounding and frantic voices yelling in fractured communion, before “Blood Moon” twinkles with breathy synthetic sighs and electronic washes as if to reassure us everything will be OK. “Breach” and “Curfew” are both more stridently militaristic, placing us in a dystopian cityscape with overhead snipers and police sirens piercing the sloping breakbeats which shatter like bones under coshes. Reality begins to pierce through the cocoon.