Photo: Lane Stewart

Fatima Al Qadiri will return to Hyperdub with a new album.

Medieval Femme is a suite of 10 tracks that expand on ideas formed in Atlantics, a soundtrack Al Qadiri recorded for French-Senegalese director Mati Diop’s Cannes 2019 Grand Prix-winning feature of the same name.

The album aims to capture the state of “melancholic longing” exemplified in the poetry of Arab women from the medieval period. Fatima seeks to transport the listener to “a place of reverie and desolation, to question the line between two seemingly opposite states and rejoice in celestial sorrow,” Hyperdub tells XLR8R. She does this using instrumentation from music of the middle ages, recast in a futuristic setting; expect soft-synth lutes, organs, and pipes that reverberate in space while gauzy pulses ripple in response.

Al Qadiri, a Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised composer currently based in Los Angeles, California, last released on Hyperdub with Shaneera, an homage to hometown friends and a celebration of regional queer influences. She debuted on the label in 2014 with Asiatisch, her first full-length effort.

Tracklisting

01. Medieval Femme
02. A Certain Concubine
03. Sheba
04. Vanity
05. Stolen Kiss Of A Succubus
06. Golden
07. Qasmuna (Dreaming)
08. Malaak
09. Tasakuba
10. Zandaq

Medieval Femme LP is scheduled for May 14 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Malaak” in full below and pre-order the album here.