It’s at times of tinder-dry global tension that art and culture can sometimes offer if not sober-headed insight than creative relief.

And while Nawa Recordings’ showcase of predominantly Arab world inspired music is not palpably political, it’s a timely reminder that there’s much more to this richly cultural and historical region than ideologues and zealots.

Making the most of the Attenborough Centre’s finely tuned acoustic design, Nawa’s British-Iraqi label boss Khyam Allami kicks begins with a 25-minute opus that sprouts out of fragmented oud lines, looped and layered into a weaving experimental jams with a thunderous percussive crescendo. Sketching Levantine melodies, he warps the traditional instruments into the esoteric, with an arrhythmic, dissonant take on tempo and melody.

Egyptian singer and composer Nadah El Shazly relies on samples and synths to build her free jazz-inspired backdrop, her voice carrying the anguish and passion of an Arabesque melodrama. The masterful command of melody toys with conventions, her voice hanging microtones beneath root notes, in an evocative, at times desperate vibrato.

Lebanese duo Two or The Dragon diverge from conventional Middle Eastern styles down a more industrial path, their electronic drone giving way to rapid patter percussive interludes, like a Beirut version of Detroit’s auto industry inspired techno.

Non-western music is often carelessly boxed off in a problematic world music category, though Nawa’s experimental shape-shifting output shows the breath-taking scope of the Arabic inspired avant-garde.