''Desert Strike'' is the third

extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

musician

Fatima Al Qadiri Fatima Al Qadiri ( ar, فاطمة القديري; born July 1981) is a Senegalese-born Kuwaiti musician and conceptual artist. Biography Fatima Al Qadiri is the daughter of Mohammed Al Qadiri, a former Kuwaiti diplomat and writer, and Thuray ...

. The record is based on '' Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf'' (1992), a video game that in turn is based on events of

Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

of the Gulf War. As a kid who lived in Kuwait during the Gulf War, Qadiri played the game a year after it took place, which messed with how she remembered experiencing the actual war. Given how dark the game portrayed the Gulf War, she intended the extended play to represent a positive and "innocent" view of it by pairing a palette of childlike sounds with war sound effects. Released on 23 October 2012 by the label Fade To Mind, ''Desert Strike'' garnered generally favorable reviews from professional

music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

s and landed on ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' magazine's list of the "Best Dance Albums of 2012."

Concept

Fade to Mind's press release for ''Desert Strike'' described the extended play as "the synthesis of terror and child-like wonder, to the strategies of imagination and gaming.""Fatima Al Qadiri – Desert Strike"
Fade To Mind Official Website. Retrieved 15 August 2017. The EP is based on '' Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf'' (1992), a video game for the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

which in turn is based on events of

of the Gulf War."Fatima Al Qadiri interview: “Childlike war vibes.”"
''Dummy''. 13 November 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2017. She played it a year after she experienced the war personally while living in

. Playing the game messed with her memories of what she really experienced during the war. Qadiri explained, “it really messed me up in the head, because I was just like ‘how does this exist in a format that I can play?’ I couldn't even describe how disturbing the feeling was.” As a kid, in order to "take hold" of how Qadiri remembered the war, she used a

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

keyboard to perform melodies that made fictional worlds and "war games" for her and her sister to be involved in. Similarly when she was an adult, given the dark way the game viewed the war, Qadiri wanted the EP to present a more positive, "deep," and "innocent" perspective of the event. As ''Dummy'' explained, "''Desert Strike'' as a game gave the children the sickening power of being able to see their situation from another, jarring perspective, and so ‘Desert Strike’ as an EP tries to make that active participation something that is actually positive and empowering, rather than a sinister role reversal or trivialisation of a tragedy." Some journalists and Qadiri herself have categorized ''Desert Strike'' as a major part of a phenomenon coined by writer

Sophia Al Maria Sophia Al Maria (صافية المرية) (born 1983) is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her work has been exhibited at the Gwangju Biennale, the New Museum in New York, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture i ...

as " Gulf Futurism."Smith, Scott (31 July 2013)
"Ethnic Futurism in the Gulf"
''Thesigers''. Retrieved 15 August 2017.

Composition

While technically based on the video game of the same name, ''Desert Strike'' is completely devoid of what Qadiri described as the "ugly" and "unsettling" tone of the game's soundtrack. Instead, it consists of bright, childlike sounds alongside otherwise serious war sound effects. ''Dummy'' described the record as having "a rough-around-the-edges aesthetic that naively, almost playfully, runs rings around the themes of conflict and aggression." ''Desert Strike'' follows what writer Rory Gibb categorized as a "disembodied dance" structure that uses styles of

grime music Grime is a genre of electronic music that emerged in London in the early 2000s. It developed out of the earlier UK dance style UK garage, and draws influences from jungle, dancehall, and hip hop. The style is typified by rapid, syncopated brea ...

,Gibb, Rory (8 November 2012)
"The Month's Electronic Music: Through The Looking Glass"
''

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quiet ...

''. Retrieved 15 August 2017. footwork, and

G-funk G-funk, short for gangsta funk, is a sub-genre of gangsta rap that emerged from the West Coast scene in the late 1980s. The genre is heavily influenced by 1970s psychedelic funk (P-funk) sound of artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic. Characte ...

. Similar to Qadiri's previous records, ''Desert Strike'' has a sound palette primarily consisting of 1980s and 1990s-style digital keyboard replications of instruments such as choirs, horns, steel drums, organs, gunshots and explosions.Stewart, Allison (17 December 2012)
"Fatima Al Qadiri, ‘Desert Strike’ album review"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. WP Company LLC. Retrieved 16 August 2017. These are played alongside 8-bit

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

textures over what the press release labeled as "sparse, decisive percussion." Jackson analyzed the choir sounds "give the EP a somewhat uneasy feel, serving as either the source of a particular song's eeriness or alternately providing a touch of angelic air to the procession, depending on what they are paired along with." Differences from Qadiri's past records include slower

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

s and "more spacious" structures, wrote Glenn Jackson of ''

XLR8R ''XLR8R'' (pronounced "accelerator") is a website that covers music, culture, style, and technology. It was originally also a print magazine. History and profile ''XLR8R'' was founded as a newsprint zine in 1993 by publisher Andrew Smith in Sea ...

''.

Release and promotion

"Ghost Raid" was released on 11 October 2012,Saxelby, Ruth (11 October 2012)
""Ghost Raid" Review"
''

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''.

Conde Nast Conde may refer to: Places United States * Conde, South Dakota, a city France * Condé-sur-l'Escaut (or simply 'Condé'), a commune Linguistic ''Conde'' is the Ibero-Romance form of "count" (Latin ''comitatus''). It may refer to: * Count ...

. Retrieved 16 August 2017. and its video, produced by Alex Gvojic of the company Thunderhorse for

MOCA LA The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

, was revealed on 1 February 2013.Friedlander, Emilie (1 February 2013)
"Video: Fatima al Qadiri, “Ghost Raid”"
''

The Fader ''The Fader'' (stylized as ''FADER'') is a magazine based in New York City that was launched in 1999 by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. It was the first print publication to be released on iTunes. It is o ...

''. Retrieved 16 August 2017. ''

'' summarized the video, "Collapsing real life war footage into vintage video game animations and original CGI wizardry, Alex Gvojic depicts an imaginary weapon of mass destruction called the "Ghost," supernaturally animated by djinn, a spirit in Islamic mythology believed to influence the minds and hearts of men by incarnating itself in various living forms." In an interview with ''

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

'', Qadiri stated she was working with Al-Maria on a music video for the EP's title track.Julious, Brett (7 January 2013)
"The Lure of an Untold Story: An Interview with Fatima Al Qadiri"
''

''. Retrieved 15 August 2017. However, a music video for the song has not been released. Fade to Mind released ''Desert Strike'' in digital stores and on vinyl on 23 October 2012.

Critical reception

Numerous journalists, including Carey Waggoner and Gibb, compared the sound quality of ''Desert Strike'' to Qadiri's previous release ''Genre Specific Xperience'' (2011). Reviewing for ''

Noisey ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, ...

'', Waggoner graded the EP a B+, calling it "extraordinary" but feeling that it wasn't as musically varied or "opulent" as ''Genre Specific Xperience''. As Gibb opined, "Most tracks here are strong enough to exist by themselves, but lacking the drive of ''Genre-Specific Xperience'', at times they feel frustratingly fragile, beautiful and absorbing miniatures that could be scattered to the wind within a fraction of a second." Allison Stewart of ''

'' called the EP a "chilly and fascinating work," describing it as a "deceptively mild offering that shouldn’t work — its songs are virtually indistinguishable from each other, it’s impossible to separate its inherent worth from Al Qadiri’s backstory, the Enya-esque backing vocals often make it seem like apocalyptic spa music — but it does, somehow." ''Desert Strike'' was placed on ''Spin'' magazine's list of the "20 Best Dance Albums of 2012," where the publication called it the year's most "socially relevant" electronic record."Fatima Al Qadiri – ''Desert Strike EP'' (Fade to Mind)"
''

''. SpinMedia. 17 December 2012. Retrieved 16 August 2017.

Track listing

Derived from the liner notes of ''Desert Strike''.

Personnel

Derived from the liner notes of ''Desert Strike''.''Desert Strike EP'' (2012).

. Fade To Mind. FADE005. *Written and produced by

*Mixed and mastered b
Jeremy Cox
at Jeremy Cox Mastering in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Release history

References

External links

Fatima Al Qadiri official website
{{Authority control 2012 albums Fatima Al Qadiri albums Grime music EPs Footwork (genre) albums G-funk EPs Instrumental EPs