Electro-Oriental

Electro-oriental is a fusion style that joins Arabic and Middle Eastern melody, maqam scales and instruments such as the oud, qanun and darbuka to electronic production drawn from trip hop, house, techno and downtempo. Emerging from Beirut's underground and from French world-electronic scenes in the late 1990s, it treats classical Arabic singing, dabke rhythms and wedding music as material for sampling, looping and club-oriented arrangement. Its leading figures include the Lebanese duo *Soap Kills*, the Paris collective *Acid Arab* and the electrified dabke of Syria's *Omar Souleyman*.