Premiere: Aaron Maple – Habibi (Edit)

They say music is a universal language. Does a nation babble when it is born? Can we ever truly come to terms with our own nativity? Titanic plates began to shift, leaving gulfs between the earthly bodies. Stars above couldn’t care less. The ode to joy has lost its conductor.

Awesome Orientalists From Europa have had enough of the cultural appropriation war. Israeli label head Gal Kadan and his Europe-homed crew are purveying a new politics of pure fusion, specialising in clubby edits of forgotten dance tracks sonically rooted in the east, but predominantly made in the west. Its third EP, led by Finnish producer Aaron Maple, cleverly marries the cold heart of European dance music with the warmth of Middle Eastern pop, and its references to traditional folk music. Tabla sits pretty atop high-nrg basslines, and lively Arabic vocals accompany a weighty Italo groove. This is Orientalist music by white musicians in reverence to, rather than ownership of, their heroes from Asia. All profits from the release will go to organisations that fight Islamophobia, antisemitism and racism in the West.