Anthony Linell^SE

Initially disinterested in using his real name—he invented Abdulla Rashim, a moniker informed by his profound interests in the Arab world, in particular Levantine culture and politics—and his Arabic studies at university. Abdulla Rashim's contemplative techno surges through every last manipulated hardware layer to unveil a fervid and unpredictably beating heart, a core that at once reflects Sweden's pastoral melancholic beauty and the incessant, vibrating rhythms of urban ritual. Growing up in Stockholm, Linell listened to electro-tinged indie pop as a teen before electronic dance music sparked an interest in programming and exploring new sounds. Abdulla Rashim seemed to arise from thin Northern air in 2011, debuting two EPs of pulsing techno psychedelia on a label bearing his own moniker. His deviant variations on deep techno quickly caught other label attention, but Linell remained a quintessentially mysterious underground techno figure. His long-time dream to create an outlet for friends' music came with the launch of Stockholm's Northern Electronics label with his friend and (at the time, dubstep) producer Jonas Rönnberg, aka Varg, in 2013—it has since featured the austere techno of Acronym, SARS, Dorisburg, Korridor, Neel and others. As a producer, Linell has alternated between personas in the past few years, experimenting in different forms with artefact-producing old hardware and newer, cleaner sounding equipment processed through an array of effects. Alongside his rhythmically precise releases as Abdulla Rashim, he's ventured into dark ambient noise territories as Lundin Oil and recently released two LPs under his own name at last—gorgeously heavy, brooding atmospheric synth tracks underlaid in low end drone.