(Hyperdub)
Here’s something to sate those desperate for protest music: an album forged in the era of Occupy and Black Lives Matter. Kuwaiti producer Al Qadiri, also known for her group Future Brown, opens with a recording of heavy-handed policing on the streets of Ferguson. Antagonists duly sketched, she rallies back with samples of leftwing commentator Lawrence O’Donnell describing police brutality, and former LAPD officer Cheryl Dorsey reporting on failures in the force. Al Qadiri’s social conscience is bracing, but her uniformly limp compositions muzzle it. Fairlight vocals and ultra-synthetic drums were fresh when James Ferraro essayed them on 2011’s landmark Far Side Virtual, but now, in the wake of Oneohtrix Point Never, Visionist and others, they are quickly becoming electronic underground cliche. Her more grime-like productions bite with milk teeth, and melodies forget the errands they were sent on. Do her anaemic laments symbolise a generation being drained of its political lifeblood? Perhaps, but they aren’t enjoyable to listen to.
Continue reading...by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian
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