Fatima Al Qadiri to Present Program on Music and Warfare on BBC Tomorrow

Update [Wednesday, March 15, 4:30 PM]: you can now stream the special in full on BBC's website.

Hyperdub affiliate Fatima Al Qadiri today announced that she will broadcast a program called "The Sound of Bombs" on BBC Radio 4 early tomorrow morning in the US. The 30-minute broadcast is a one-off special, and will explore the connections between music and war in contemporary life, and ways the two influence one another.

The program will look at how the sounds of war "have bled into modern music," and also investigate the ways "music has become indispensable for soldiers and civilians caught up in warzones," according to a post about the show on the BBC's website. It will also look at how music and sound have technologies of violence in their own right, utilized as a means for terror and torture.

"The Sound of Bombs" is directly in line with the subject matter Al Qadiri has gravitated towards in the past; her 2016 album Brute was a tribute to political protest during a time of the increasing militarization of America's law enforcement.

THUMP interviewed Al Qadiri about Trump's controversial travel ban earlier in the year, and she said that while it may be shocking, it is in many ways a continuation of an approach to border policing that grew under the Bush and Obama administrations. "It didn't come out of nowhere," she said. "To say otherwise is to be naïve of what has been happening since 9/11."

The program will broadcast on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM EST, or 11:30 GMT, and be archived for streaming afterwards.

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