Fatima Al Qadiri: La créme de la femme | La compositora senegalesa presenta su disco Medieval Femme pagina12.com.ar - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pagina12.com.ar Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Patrick Clarke
, May 27th, 2021 23:56
From exuberant pop to all-out brutality, via everything in-between, here are tQ s favourite albums and tracks of May 2021
I received my first dose of Pfizer vaccine yesterday, having heard from a friend of a friend of a relative of my partner that an old function hall in Woodford had some spares for walk-ins. When I got home I checked my emails and saw that I was invited to a gig. Typically, after a year and a half of waiting for such an opportunity, I m busy that day, but nevertheless if I were to stretch for a sign, it s fitting that it was the first day in weeks that the rain clouds that have been clinging over London for the last month finally went away, leaving a balmy blue sky in their place. Not to labour the point too much, but it feels like things might be getting better.
Medieval Femme an album,
per se – not only do modern releases vary wildly from the forty-minute limit of the LP, but they also have singles and album cuts. This is rather a suite, a collection of pieces reflecting on a similar theme, in this case “the state of melancholic longing exemplified by the poetry of Arab women from the medieval period”. Fatima Al Qadiri’s approach to songwriting bears some similarities to classical form (exposition, development, recapitulation) – and very little to pop structures.
Firstly, the songs are slow on the whole, with maybe two melodies per cut – and largely lack percussion too, though ‘Sheba’ tantalizes briefly with some brisk kick hits halfway through. The vocals linger on their diction, each syllable ringing long over the mix, like inhalations with weight. Al Qadiri’s third record meddles with our sense of history, mightily impinging the past and future
Embed Singer Jorja Smith. Her latest release,
Be Right Back, is on our shortlist of the best albums out on May 14. Bardha Krasniqi/Courtesy of the artist
hide caption
toggle caption Bardha Krasniqi/Courtesy of the artist
The English singer and songwriter Jorja Smith has the kind of voice that can send hearts soaring and a gift for writing songs of empathy and compassion. On this week s show we give a listen to her latest release,
Be Right Back, and talk about the ways Smith reveals her deep understanding of what it means to be human.
The Skinny
Fatima Al Qadiri – Medieval Femme
Fatima Al Qadiri takes us through the rich, vibrant history of Arabic music and culture on her latest Hyperdub release, Medieval Femme
★★★★ Album title: Medieval Femme
Returning to Hyperdub for her third full-length release,
Medieval Femme, Senegal-born, Kuwaiti musician Fatima Al Qadiri takes the poetry of Arab women from the medieval period as the album’s key thematic influence.
Sounds from the past and present are fused together, as organs pulse and reverberate over sharp tones on Sheba, while sparse synths lead into trembling gongs on Stolen Kiss of a Succubus and delicately plucked strings lie beneath warped vocals on Qasmuna (Dreaming). On Tasakuba, a couplet from the 7th century poet Al-Khansā – widely considered one of the most influential poets of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods – is recited by Kaltham Jassim.