- A ferocious big-room mix from Palestine's techno ambassador.
- "They have so much to say, and they are yelling through a synth," Sama' Abdulhadi says in the notes accompanying her new fabric presents mix. "Like I am when I perform." She's talking about the Latin American producers featured on the release, some of whom she didn't realise were from the region when she was compiling it. But similarities and relationships with Abdulhadi's music don't end there. Her style of techno—unapologetically big-room, three-dimensional, focused on drops and moments—is singularly aggressive yet universal, flattening the difference between peoples and scenes around the world into one momentous whole. Her career is remarkable for the very fact that she exists—a Palestinian DJ with a Boiler Room set that has more than ten million views—but she's not a novelty act, either. As her fabric presents shows, the power of Abdulhadi's work comes in how it packs feelings of resistance, anger, pride and joy into big-tent dance music—no words necessary, just feeling.
fabric presents Sama' Abdulhadi starts bold and stays there. Even Pan-Pot sounds ferocious, their "Confronted" being fed through a storm of white noise and caustic synths from Vazik and XZYKO. Lampé scores an early highlight with "Where To Start," whose brief dubstep breakdown is exciting every time. That comes down to Abdulhadi's DJing style, which can make things feel so tense it's like a rubber band about to snap—which is what almost happens in "Where To Start," but then the track lets off steam at just the right moment.
Writhing synths, precocious drum patterns, bass womps: this is Abdulhadi's sonic language, which lends the mix a breathless quality to go with its muscular thump. The drill-influenced techno of Kos:mo's "Flashback" lunges forward with a booming MC verse, while Abdulhadi blasts through sections of noise (Lutgens' "ASMR") and bad-trip synths (Flug's "Phase One") with single-minded ferocity. One of the few tracks with anything approaching a respite is her collaboration with Walaa Sbait, "Well Fee," but that's because she allows it the luxury of a breakdown, before a hi-hat returns to put everything back into march mode.
Much has been made of Abdulhadi's predilection towards psytrance, and we get a bit of that here with Psycrain and C.A.T.'s cybernetic roller "Goosebombs." The gnarled textures and fast kick drums might sound ridiculous in another techno DJ's hands, but Abdulhadi earns the excess. "Goosebombs" sends the mix flying towards its conclusion with eerie synth workouts ("Nada-R" by YA Z AN) and Belgian new beat-baiting Ibiza business (Dyzen's "Tesseract") before ending on an extended and defiant note with Acid Arab.
If there's anything that unites the music on fabric presents Sama' Abdulhadi, it's a sense of foreboding, maybe even existential dread. The bass rumbles like a warning from the distance, the drums like palpitating heartbeats. It's an intriguing blend of panic and tension with the usual joy and escapism associated with techno. But for so many people like Abdulhadi, there is no escaping. Even one of the most famous Palestinians in the world still has trouble traveling. As she said in an interview with The Guardian, "The first thing you learn as a Palestinian is that you're probably going to die. You have to engage a little bit extra because life could be over in ten minutes." On fabric presents Sama' Abdulhadi, she sounds loud and very much alive.
Tracklist01. Khainz - The Drift
02. Vazik - Clouds And Stars
03. Pan-Pot - Confronted
04. XZYKO - Kangoa
05. Lampé - Where To Start
06. Karim Alkhayat & NÚRIA - Legend
07. Carbon & Peter Groskreutz - Discharge
08. Sama Abdulhadi & Walaa Sbeit - Well Fee
09. Flug - Phase One
10. Kos:mo - Flashback
11. Lutgens - ASMR
12. Coyu - Snow In Ipanema
13. Mython - Sexual Deviant
14. Bruce Zalcer - The Wizard
15. TimiR & Unlighted - System
16. Psycrain & C.A.T - Goosebombs
17. hngT - Artificial Awareness
18. Michael Klein - Contact
19. NADA-R - YA Z AN
20. Sylvie Miles - Man In The Woods
21. Dyzen - Tesseract
22. Acid Arab - Laba Staifia (Ammar 808 Remix)