“Fusion” is a word as broad and unhelpful as any other genre categorisation. Potentially a stone’s throw from new age, reiki and psytrance, it’s burdened with ten thousand lame associations. So, when “fuses eastern and western sounds” appears on a press release, you can imagine the wave of hesitation. What exactly am I getting here?
My Enemy, My Love, from Iranian artist Mentrix (Samar Rad) is, ostensibly, a fusion album. But rather than diminish the intent of its traditional influences, it rearranges gracefully for our cold and inorganic present. Rad has not sought to make some self-conscious cross-cultural collage: she is, like all of us, living in a newly global world. The term “fusion” belongs in the 1970s, when there was still novelty to catching a flight and global cultures were further than a google away. Nowadays, if we aren’t fusing, we haven’t been listening.
That said, the skeleton of My Enemy, My Love is a traditional Sufi one. Daf drums are built on a large empty frame which, for Rad, has philosophical ramifications unto itself. “When you are truly empty of the world,” she says, “the entire universe can resonate within you.” On this LP, the drums pulse with an unstoppable power and circular, trance-like repetition. Nowhere is this truer than on midpoint track ‘Longing’ where, like the pummelling of revival trilogy Swans, you could just as well be listening to the world’s heartbeat.
These drums are post-processed and surrounded by nasty-fied textures—think the clanging of bedsprings and acidic hiss of The Knife’s Shaking the Habitual—which position the LP as less of a fusion and more a corruption. Through this edgy production, Rad upholds the exultance of her influences. My Enemy, My Love isn’t crushing or depressive. It’s just got a few hundred volts going through it. A fair parallel would be the supercharged Tune-Yards; a little fried, a little freakish, but beautiful and bouncing all the same. Some significant control has been exercised to ensure My Enemy, My Love didn’t get lost in concept, or have the sincerity produced out of it.
When restraint is abandoned, the LP becomes thrilling in a different way. On the title track—a stunner in perpetual acceleration—rhythms jabber in swirls of chaos before building to a cacophonous drone. The track overstimulates to the point of causing a shutdown; all you can do is listen in awe. Signifiers of meaning are set aside for a pure experiential ride. It’s in these hyper-symbolic spaces that My Enemy, My Love really excels; the areas of ourselves which, no matter where in the world we’re from, wait in blind apprehension for our touch.
My Enemy, My Love is available for purchase and streaming here.
Words: Andrew O’Keefe