Kevin Bronson on April 29th, 2016

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Singer-songwriter-designer-entreneur Hanni El Khatib takes a turn for the raw on his new EP, “Savage Times, Vol. 1,” a three-song slap in the face out today via Innovative Leisure. When he debuted in 2011 with the first of his three full-length albums, El Khatib’s garage-rock was advertised as “knife-fighting music” and “songs for anybody who has ever been shot or hit by a train” — but those little hyperboles paled compared to the real-life events of last fall.

He was in Paris in September to play a show when the terror attacks rocked France, so he holed up with his guitar and began to write. The ideas took shape in December at Jazzcats Studios in Long Beach, and “Savage Times” is the result — a song about mortality, a song about identity and a song about ethnicity. Of the latter, El Khatib, the son of a Palestinian father and a Filipino mother, says: “My mother and father came to this country with high hopes to achieve their dreams. They made every opportunity count. Somewhere along the way they found each other and I was born. They instilled their values and ethics in me. We’ve worked hard as a family to get to where we are today. This song is for anyone raised in America by the immigrants who have made this country what it is. Born Brown. Born Proud.”

||| Watch: The video for “Born Brown”

||| Stream: “Baby’s OK” and “Gonna Die Alone”