This talk interrogates the significance of al-Andalus to the conceptual and practical boundaries of contemporary Europe. Against increasingly powerful xenophobic assertions of European identity, this talk analyzes an alternative topography of Europe through an exploration of the practices and sensibilities cultivated and promoted by musicians specializing in “Andalusian music”—a term that, as I explore, marks a highly contested historical and geographical location. Rather than see this arena of musical practice as a romantic expression of multicultural identity, this talk takes the materiality of this musical practice seriously—the life-forms, geographies and temporalities it effects and the political work it performs on the project of European civilization.