Asiatisch
Notions of place and displacement feature strongly in the works of Fatima Al Qadiri. The Brooklyn-based producer refers to her debut full-length as a “virtual road trip through ‘imagined China,’” refracting the skewed manner in which Asian motifs have sunk into Western pop culture.
A record of considerable ambition, this is both a coherent listen and a sensible comment on Western perceptions of Asia - except without being anywhere near as dry as that sounds.
Kuwait-born Fatima Al Qadiri, first associated with the 'vaporwave' microgenre, reveals herself to be worthy of the hype on her Planet Mu debut. The dominant sound on Asiatisch is another microgenre, this time 'sinogrime'
This dubstep exploration of orientalism reads like a music theorist's doctoral thesis – but there's good music here, writes <strong>Lanre Bakare</strong>