Raw industrial textures, tense EBM pulses and fragile Iraqi rhythms collide here into one urgent current. Electronic machines breathe alongside hypnotic Arabic percussion, while a ceremonial vocal cuts through the darkness like a beacon. This is not a simple blend of influences – different cultural worlds are distilled into a new expression that belongs to both, yet fully to neither. It tells a story of freedom, responsibility and the gap between the mental maps of East and West.
Use Knife is a trio bringing together Iraqi vocalist and percussionist Saif Al-Qaissy with Belgian musicians Kwinten Mordijck and Stef Heeren. On last year’s album État Coupable (Guilty State), they sharpen both their sound and their stance: dark, dance-driven tracks capture an individual resisting impersonal forces of power, stirring Western club underground into an Arabic crucible. A singular presence.