Fatima Al Qadiri announces Fade to Mind EP, shares new track

Fatima Al Qadiri returns to her roots for her Fade to Mind debut.

A truly global artist, Al Qadiri was born in Senegal, raised in Kuwait, and is now based in New York. Her Desert Strike EP is a meditation on her experiences growing up in Kuwait during the Gulf War.

As FADER points out, Al Qadiri and her sister owned and played a first-person-shooter called “Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf” just a year after the conflict. Based on that grim fact, the EP explores the themes of desensitization through real and virtual experiences.

Her previous efforts both had rhetorical hooks: 2011’s Warn-U EP (as Ayshay) re-imagined Middle Eastern devotional music, and last year’s Genre Specific Xperience stayed true to its title by reworking everything from juke to Gregorian trance.

The Desert Strike EP is out on October 23 on Fade to Mind (the label’s fifth EP). Stream ‘Ghost Raid’, named after Gulf War bombing raids, below. The track is martial but melodic, with the rubbery synthetics of Genre Specific Xperience.