Brute

新世代インディ・ディストピアの総本山からアイシャイ(Ayshy)名義でリリースしたEPで注目を集め、〈Fade To Mind〉からの本人名義でのリリースやグズグズ(Nguzunguzu)とのプロダクション・チーム、フューチャー・ブラウンでさらに活躍の場を広げてきた才女ファティマ・アル・カディリが、「デジタル時代における欧米から見たアジア幻想」をテーマに制作し2014年に〈Hyperdub〉からリリースした衝撃のファースト・アルバム『Asiatisch』から早2年、待望のセカンド・アルバムをリリースする。

本作のテーマは「権力」や、「警察、特にアメリカにおいての市民と抗議・反対運動の関係性」など、サンプリング・加工された抗議活動の音や抑えの利いたパーカッション、シグネチャー・サウンドともいえるマイナー進行で、怒りと絶望の間で揺れ動きながら主張を展開していく。

楽曲には様々な問題に対するメッセージが込めらており、刑務所に関する実情を反映した「Oubliette」、警察の軍事化に対する「Endzone」、「Curfew」、防御と強大な武力の脆い境界線を訴える「Battery」、「10-34」、絶え間なく踏みにじられる反対派や活動家の尊厳を描いた「Breach」、「Blows」、「Fragmentation」など、本作はそれらの活動の中で亡くなった人々や団体への厳粛な手向となっている。

アートワークはアート・ディレクターのBabak Radboyが監修したJosh Klineのスカルプチャー作品「Po Po」の一部を撮影したもの。人気子供向け番組のキャラクターにSWATの武装をさせ監視テクノロジーを埋め込み、Radboyは「Po-Po」を空想のブロックバスター(大量殺戮兵器)のイメージとして作り上げた。

Pitchfork (Website) - "BRUTE is in some ways closer to a piece of Brechtian theater than a traditional album." Clash (Magazine) - "[T]here can be no doubt that with `Brute', Al Qadiri has invoked her own personal brand of protest in a world in which discussion over that right has become ever more charged."

The cover of Fatima Al Qadiri's second Hyperdub album, designed by Babak Radboy, features Joerg Lohse's photograph of a Josh Kline sculpture -- a life-size, Teletubby-faced figure in riot gear. The sculpture was part of Kline's Freedom exhibit, which used a version of Al Qadiri's "Star Spangled," a baleful synthetic choral track that twisted the U.S. national anthem, as its soundtrack. Like the Francis Scott Key composition, Brute has a Baltimore connection, in addition to one with Ferguson and the U.S. at large. While Al Qadiri was recovering from a knee injury in Kuwait, she was locked into social media coverage of the anti-police brutality protests that were occurring in the States after the homicides of numerous black citizens, including Ferguson's Michael Brown and Baltimore's Freddie Gray. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as by Occupy activists, and flashing back to her own experiences with demonstrations and militarized authority, she went about recording Brute. It sparingly incorporates sounds of coverage from escalated protest scenes -- sirens, piercing sound cannons, protesters fleeing for safety. "Blows," appropriately one of the more physical tracks, concludes with the voice of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell: "...crushing them on the pavement and arresting them...for not doing anything." The album plays out like a score commissioned by a documentarian who requested that Al Qadiri refer to her past work while keeping it austere and menacing throughout. In essence, Brute is dark ambient grime, with Al Qadiri's stamping drums and probing bass frequencies heard less frequently than her synthesized choirs and horns. At its most vivid, it evokes the feeling of anticipating a shove or a bean bag round. The producer's composites of real and simulated elements make for surreal listening, heard most intensely on the closing "Power," where a segment from an interview with retired police sergeant Cheryl Dorsey is flanked by synthesized shattering-glass effects. A kind of document and grave form of protest music at once, this album should be bundled with any updated editions of Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear, written by Hyperdub founder Steve Goodman (aka Kode9), first published in 2012. ~ Andy Kellman