Fun-Da-Mental - "Erotic Terrorism" [1998]

Artist: Fun-Da-Mental

Title: Erotic Terrorism

Genre: Breakbeat, Industrial Hip-Hop, World Fusion

Country: UK

Release date: 1998

Track List:

1. Oh Lord! (Devil Would Like A Word)
2. Demonised Soul (My Head Bus On A Hard Surface But I Could Never Hurt It)
3. Godevil (All Tainted By Wickedness)
4. Ja Sha Taan (Joo Ley Lal Mustt Qalander)
5. Blood In Transit (After Dinner Mints)
6. Repent (Not Repented Yet)
7. Deathening Silence (Thru Bloodless Birth My Being A Clone)
8. Furious (Crustacean Of The Sea, Organism Of Dust)
9. See I A (Dust On Ants Feet)
10. The Distorted C (All We Want)
11. One Ness (Dhann A Dhann)
12. Sliced Lead (Fill It With Lead)
13. Tongue Gone Cold (Grown To A Medical Specimen Paranoid Mad Careless Deviance)

Fun-Da-Mental is a brainchild of Aki Nawaz (Haq Nawaz Qureishi) who started his music career as a drummer in The Southern Death Cult, one of the first British post-punk/gothic rock bands which later took a much more commercial hard/glam rock direction under the name The Cult. In the meanwhile, Aki Nawaz took the stage name Propa-Gandhi and founded Fun-Da-Mental in August '91 during London's annual Notting Hill Carnival. Needless to say that his new band sounded nothing like Southern Death Cult, although still being heavily influenced by the spirit of punk:

Initial line-up consisted of Bad-Sha Lallaman and Aki Nawaz (properly Haq Qureshi) who went under the stage name of Propa-Gandhi, Man-Tharoo (who later went under the name of Goldfinger) and DJ Obeah (who would be replaced by Dave Watts). The least convincing colour on their style palette would be rap; their originality lies in their manipulation of soundbite and sample. Often witty, they mix samples of the classical instruments, the metamorphosed motif of the train whistle from the Hindi film Pakeezah, Pakistani village music and filmi (Indian film music), all woven into a patterns of flavours.

Around the time when "Erotic Terrorism" was released, FDM played a show in my home city. It was the time when bands like The Prodigy were wildly popular here (and elsewhere), so the public was quite impressed by seeing what was described by some critics as "how The Prodigy would sound if they were born somewhere around the Indus River valley" (the most obvious comparison, however, would be "a more heavier version of Asian Dub Foundation", but seems like nobody here has heard of ADF at the time). Back then I was too young to appreciated their music, but I have memorized their name, and many years later I bought the "Erotic Terrorism" on cassette at first opportunity. I wasn't disappointed at all; to me, it sounded more like "how KMFDM would sound if Sascha Konietzko and En Esch were born in Pakistan and met each other in the UK":