Electronic

Club, techno, house and beat-making from Arab producers, often built on regional rhythms rather than imported ones.

The interesting work here is rarely a straight import of a Berlin or Detroit template. Producers in Beirut, Cairo, Ramallah, Amman, Tunis and Casablanca have spent the last fifteen years pulling shaabi, dabke, Gnawa and maqam into club structures, which is both a musical decision and a practical one: those rhythms already move a room in the places these records are made.

The scene is built on small labels, semi-legal parties and radio residencies rather than on industry infrastructure, and a lot of it moves outward, to European festivals and to labels that pick up Arab producers a few years after their local audience did.

Expect anything from four-to-the-floor techno to ambient, downtempo and sample collage under this term. Trip Hop and Experimental have their own archives for the further-out end of it.