Arooj Aftab

Adding to all the praise. Been a remarkable year in music, really.

ILM Archival Service

from the Hallelujah Poll, poll Halleluja.... poll:

she ended 7th (along with a host of others)

Poll Results
Option Votes
1.Jeff Buckley 15
3.John Cale 12
2.Leonard Cohen 10
19.Happy Mondays 6
22.Bono 2
8.Rufus Wainwright 2
40.Arooj Aftab 1
[...]
― Mark G, vrijdag 26 november 2010 12:59

a friend of mine just played drums with her on a gig (not a meshell gig, backing up arooj aftab...anyone go to that?)
― this is unusual for batman. (Jordan), woensdag 2 november 2011 15:04

The NYC club listing below is not clear--are they playing Pakistani music?
“An incredible incredible stupendous stupendous group of humans will walk and run and dream and weep through an evening of songs by Arooj Aftab and Grey Mcmurray.
The Sea Gazing Family Band for the night of October 29th 2011 will be:
Arooj Aftab
Mathias Kunzli
Joshua Valleau
Conor Elmes
Norman Vladimir
Grey Mcmurray
and Meshell Ndegeocello”
― curmudgeon, woensdag 2 november 2011 15:24

pakistani jazz?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLvAAzEOqM0
― this is unusual for batman. (Jordan), woensdag 2 november 2011 15:43

Al Sarah and the Nubatones // Arooj Aftab // DJ Ushka
A night of ultimate contemporary world and roots fusion sounds! [...]
Arooj Aftab will perform a duo set of acoustic, pre-partition, sufi inspired south asian semi classical music with Guitarist and Co-Composer Bhrigu Sahni.
The show is at a secret location on Saturday Sept 29th in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. You must RSVP, attendance is by invitation only. Send a message to alsarah5✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧ and you will recieve a confirmation email with time and exact location.
Not a good look to miss this, so see you there!!
― EVERYONE COOKING SCMABLED EGGS,CHEESE WITH TOASTER!! (forksclovetofu), vrijdag 28 september 2012 20:28

April 28 – Arroj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shazad Ismaily
https://www.joespub.com/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Arooj-Aftab-Vijay-Iyer--Shazad-Ismaily-Trio/?SiteTheme=JoesPub

August 7 – Jesus Carmona / Arooj Aftab – Dance - FREE
http://www.lincolncenter.org/out-of-doors/show/jesus-carmona-and-arooj-aftab

Listening to "Mohabbat" on Bandcamp...it's nice. It seems like I was sent a promo, so I'll check out the whole album.

I'm halfway through the first song and it's amazing. Though its different, it hits similar spots for me as that Alabaster DePlume record.

Adore this album

"Mohabbat": all that balancing on the acoustic guitar cycle, the vocal notes occasionally venturing, returning closer to the hub (yes also thinking of bicycle guitar): makes me think of 60s Joni and Fairport, like if they did another otherwise elusive JM song after "Eastern Rain"---yeah this and "Last Night" especially make me think of DePlume, and a production by Solid Air-era Martyn, eventually veering toward One World, if he were directing say Danny Thompson and Terry Cox--but the singer, confident as ever, never gets lost in the pile-on of my associations. Lots of other stuff on her bandcamp...
April 28 – Arroj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shazad Ismaily Tell me this is on YouTube, or somewhere.

"Mohabbat" is also reminding me of how "Eastern Rain" and some other things on FC's What We Did On Our Holidays always had me thinking of East-West trade routes involving maybe the Arctic Circle, pre-Ice Age, say (thinking of that during Weed Age)

wow

wow wow wow wow wow

booming post :)

I listened to this on long drive and it was very meditative. It put my mom to sleep (which she needed, lol).

oh wow this is astounding

Good interview here: https://pitchfork.com/features/rising/arooj-aftab-vulture-prince-interview/

Of note: she's recorded a to-be-released album with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily as Love In Exile

I had no idea she was an Abida Parveen protégée of sorts. Now there's a legit lineage!

Goddam

Program

Love in Exile performs as one continuous hour-long set.

Pictures help us to live in complete possession of our sense of sight…[they] send us back to life and to the other arts with the ability to see beauty all around us.
—Duncan Phillips, 1926

Join us from the gallery exploring the senses in our exhibition Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, for a transformative, hour-long musical meditation from composer/pianist Vijay Iyer, vocalist Arooj Aftab, and bassist Shazad Ismaily. Love in Exile creates lush, cathartic, and ritualistic soundscapes that activate visual works in the gallery by Leo Villareal, Malissia Pettaway, Rudolf De Crignis, and Richard Diebenkorn.

This performance will be broadcast on this event page and is free with registration. Once you have registered, return to this page on Sunday, May 9, scroll down to the section “Watch the Stream” and enter the password provided to you at registration. The performance will be available to view On-Demand.

https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2021-05-09-vijay-iyer-arooj-aftab-and-shahzad-ismaily-love-exile

https://www.phillipscollection.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_extra_large_no_crop_1200_/public/2021-04/wide%20final%20photo.jpg?itok=jdDLs0aT

You don't (and apparently no longer can) register to stream---I couldn't get the cart etc. to respond, so just clicked on the Vimeo, and here we go---already sounds awesome.

Three pieces, in total a little over 53 minutes. First is the longest, slowest, zoneist, zzzz-est for me, penultimately, but I woke up for final coalescence---main thing here is, this really is a group, and everybody gets enough room, but Iyer goes a bit far into the weeds sometimes---however, on the second piece, about 24 minutes in, he switches to electric piano, and the whole thing is a little faster, more discernibly developmental---on the third one, he goes back to the acoustic, Chopinesque, then she comes in sooner than on the second, he goes to both hands on the left side, with pedals, and Ismaily's Moog bass drone is ominous--she reaches some peaks all through, without ever losing her cool.
I'll check their album for sure, but glad to have hers first.

O now this is the shit (occasionally seems like some instruments other than listed, but might be how the listed are used---wouldn't swear she's not the flute, also, like it says, A masterful expression of lyrical and acoustic soul, tripped out through analog voltage and experimental digital filters.)
credits
released March 9, 2015

Bird Under Water
Written, Arranged and Produced by Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab - Vocals
Jörn Bielfeldt - Drums/Percussion
Mario Carrillo - Contra-Bass
Bhrigu Sahni - Acoustic/Electric Guitar
Magda Giannikou - Accordion on tracks 2, 3 and 4
Sonny Singh - Trumpet on tracks 2 and 5
Baqir Abbas - Bansuri on track 1
Rakae Jamil - Sitar on track 3

Tracks 2, 3 and 5 co-written with Bhrigu Sahni
Mixed and Mastered by Jeremy Loucas
Engineered by Joshua Valleau and Alex Syner
Album Art by Anum Awan and Yikun Liang
https://aroojaftab.bandcamp.com/album/bird-under-water

Kind of a DePlume vibe, or related appeal,anyway, but maybe earlier in the day or evening, and a little more spare?
https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/album/to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1

Sorry, meant to link re Carlos Niño & Friends on Rolling Jazz, but Arooj fans might dig that album too.

certainly digging it

she’s on obama's summer playlist lol

prob freaking out a lotta rightwingnuts who have no idea who she is

Suroor might be my highlight from Vulture Prince, but there are moments in every song where she stops me in whatever I was doing. I also love how she manages to jump from orchestral to reggae to harp-folk to post-rock delicate soundscapes in an otherwise very consistent style. Suroor sounds like a Mande-Arabic fusion, in a pleasant unplaceable global way that I guess is the new platonic ideal of world music.

there are moments in every song where she stops me in whatever I was doing

I hadn't listened to this in a little while, but I put it on while in mountains with some friends for the first time in a year and everyone was totally spellbound. It's really powerful

yeah you gotta be careful where and when you put it on haha

it’s firmly a “don’t drive with this” album for me, along with prefab sprout’s i trawl the megahertz

I wonder how much Obama pays his playlist consultants

and are they hiring? I always feel mildly owned when those lists drop lol

do we have a driving music thread? vc's post reminds me of a friend who would drive to stuff like Stars of the Lid and Windy & Carl that would 100% result in my death if I tried it

Heard this for the first time yesterday and was utterly entranced. By necessity, so much of my listening these days is done while doing other things - working, cooking, chores, etc. It is rare that an artist so completely pulls me out of my immediate focus and compels me to listen the way this did from the opening track.

best album of the year, imo

nommed for best new artist at the grammys lol

that's what the obama co-sign will do for you

LMAO

also up for best global album i think.

she's on my year-end list, great album

same

vinyl just went up on bandcamp i guess... last batches sold fast

yeah you gotta be careful where and when you put it on haha

it’s firmly a “don’t drive with this” album for me, along with prefab sprout’s i trawl the megahertz

― bezos did the dub (voodoo chili), Wednesday, July 21, 2021 6:17 AM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

off topic but i find this comment funny because I actually associate I Trawl the Megahertz with driving (specifically, during the first wave of the pandemic, when it felt like the world was collapsing)

anyways, just listened to this record and it's indeed lovely

yeah it's def one of my favorites this year, I can listen forever

Me too, discovered through this thread in April. Haven't come across any mention of it anywhere else.

This album is great, I'm so behind keeping up with stuff, so ... thanks Grammys?

not sure why mohabbat seems to be considered the standout on this record.

meanwhile, saans lo has to be one of the most transcendental songs I've heard in years. the production and instrumentation on it remind me a lot of the title track from jim o'rourke's eureka

I agree it's not an obvious standout

believe "Last Night" was the lead single

I think it's just that Mohabbat's finger picking give it pace and a familiarity to a western audience. Saans Lo is gorgeous but works better as an album track than "the one" to represent her to a new listener.

i'm on a serious Arooj Aftab and Myriam Gendron kick.

who else sounds like them? long, slow, gorgeous songs ... language doesn't matter.

looking forward to seeing her at Coachella! one of my favorite discoveries on the lineup.

if you want arooj adjacent stuff (at least geographically) this is a festival my buddy did and it's packed with good artists
https://www.habibi-festival.com/

who else sounds like them? long, slow, gorgeous songs ... language doesn't matter.

first Sharon Van Etten album
julie doiron's desormais
maybe Sandro Perri's Tiny Mirrors
Ian William Craig - A Turn Of Breath
first couple Weather Station albums
Agnes Obel maybe

Qareeb (1987) by Najma

o yes corrs I think your suggestion is relevant as hell. Also don't miss the earlier music on Arooj's Bandcamp.

Mahsa Vahdat albums plus her duet one with now late blues-soul singer Mighty Sam MMcClain

I have never understood why bands don't just load more merch in during the opening band. I guess you'd have to be pretty attentive to keep track of it all (ie "why is there more merch here now than when you started?")

I actually don't know how widespread it is, but Stereolab recently posted that there were only 2 venues on their upcoming tour which don't take a cut.

xxp

That is such a bullshit practice that needs to be shamed out of existence, ASAP. I've seen a couple of impassioned arguments FOR the practice from small venue owners that bemoan how much things cost for them, but none of it was enough to convince me.

My most detailed peek into touring band finances was a band some friends were in that used to tour Europe playing mostly small theaters. 8 piece band in a bus plus a sound person, driver, and merch person. Pre-pandemic they would come home with some money, let's say $5 - 15k per person depending on the length of the tour. Not great money at all if you're trying to live on it, and can't take a a full-time job so you can tour a few months out of the year. But definitely not losing tens of thousands of dollars.

I'm sure things are worse now in terms of missed shows due to travel snafus and COVID, lower turn-out and sales, etc. But I'd love to know how much worse, ie does that explain everything or are there additional factors in Aftab's situation.

I see she's booked to come back to the Washington DC area in April 2023 on a bill with Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily all together in a collaborative project called Love in Exile at the fancy suburban Strathmore Music Center in Maryland that I think holds 2,200 people. $23 to $68. Not sure they will fill the place, but maybe she gets a sizable guarantee?

recent conversation i had with two booking agents suggested that Europe for jazz/"world" is good guaranteed money, US is not.

Lots of venues take a percentage of merch sales too

this is insane? does that go for both US/EU?

xxpost To have an idea of what you might be for with Love In Exile, scroll up to where I posted the link to their streaming concert: click on that, then click on the Vimeo you'll see, as I just now did: seems fine, although I didn't try to play the whole thing. Mainly because, as I said in my comments then (May, 2021), I sometimes got frustrated by the knottier, lengthier piano traffic patterns, despite the excellent vocals and bass---piano was effective at times as well, but judging by posts about recent shows, seems like she still gives her colleagues a lot of space---and Vijay is my least favorite of the people she's performed with (although he's always been an effective anchor-to-axis-and-back for Burnt Sugar). But she's mentioned a Love In Exile album that was finished a while back, and I would like to hear it---for one thing, maybe studio budgeting etc. would rein him in.

Time to spill the beans … https://t.co/a1OrLh39Gg

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) November 18, 2022

Definitely looking forward to that at Big Ears.

looking forward to hearing that

Been checking out Love in Exile video online from the last few years via NYC shows and a DC one at the Phillips Collection art museum. Improvised and a bit more melancholy. Definitely rewarding

Oh, some of the Love in Exile stuff is mentioned upthread. They first did it in 2018 and have done it on and off over the years.

Has the Love in Exile album been delayed? It's March in like 10 days but no preorder, no tracklisting, no info since that tweet back in November.

https://f-cat.de/en/artist/love-in-exile

This says spring 2023. Aftab's manager told me during a zoom interview I did with her a few weeks ago, that the first single from it would be out February 23 and that the album would be out March 23

^ Ooh, thanks, I'm glad it's not pushed back! She has just confirmed the single on Twitter BTW:

FIRST SINGLE of the new project is out tomorrowwwww TOMORROWWW

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) February 22, 2023

tomorrow... but that's... today!!

yes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z0w7U6yw0c
Arooj Aftab ft. Vijay Iyer & Shahzad Ismaily • To Remain/To Return

(there's also a 3'19 edit)

has anyone listened to this all?
I think it’s a beautiful piece, if perhaps less ‘dramatic’ than the Vulture Prince material

Yes, I really enjoyed it, but will wait for the full album before listening again.

ha, I was going to post the exact same thing

Working w/ Vijay Iyer & S. Azmaily rather than Vulture Prince musicians I think is going to sound a bit different (although some of Aftab vocal melodies may seem consistent). Upthread and on Youtube are some live Love in Exile shows from NY & DC that the album will likely resemble.

Gonna be including the album in my Stereogum column for March even though it's pretty far from "jazz." Really beautiful, though.

Looks like the album is not going to include the magnificent piece they did for the Resonant Bodies comp (is that how they got they her?)

https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-bodies?t=6 if you missed it

* is that how they got together?

Iyer I read often invites people to perform with him and he invited Aftab to play onstage with him. Then he invited Aftab and Ismaily to do so, and after they all played together once , Ismaily was so so wowed he asked the other two to keep playing together as a trio

album is out (have yet to listen)

keep waiting for the album to begin, riyl sleepy ECM

Yeah it's more an ECM album with Arooj than an Arooj Aftab album. I also found the beginning to be too quiet, but now I'm enjoying the dialogue between piano and double bass and the tranquil warmth (Shadow Forces - Sajni), the slightly darker Eyes of the Endless. I think there's enough tension and beauty to hook me.

I have precisely zero problems with sleepy ECM plus Arooj.

It's not sleepy, exactly — it's just a slow build. And you really need to listen to the whole thing front to back; you can't really pluck one track out (though I did, obviously, when covering it for Stereogum).

Nate Chinen interviews Love In Exile:

On this special episode of All Songs Considered, Iyer, Aftab and Ismaily sat down in the Brooklyn recording studio Ismaily owns for for an in-depth conversation that touches on the origins of the trio, which they say felt instantly charged with spiritual energies. They also dicussed the implications of the name "Love in Exile," with its play of diaspora and longing; the mysterious way that a song form can emerge out of group improv and "ritual time" as an expression of tempo ungoverned by genre or market concerns.

Saw the Love in Exile trio Friday night . I enjoyed the ethereal soundscapes they did. It's a Vijay Iyer led project. Aftab sounded great when she sang. But she looked a little stressed. Early in the show she noted that she had monitor issues, and then later she didn't talk in between songs much -- a couple of comments about wanting more wine to drink onstage.(that first sounded like a joke or sarcasm, but after second comment about it , she seemed annoyed with the theatre for real).

I saw that a couple of dates from the Love In Exile tour have turned up on Dime. Not listened to the sets yet. Have enjoyed teh couple of tracks I've heard by her and did see she got an article in one of teh UK monthlies last moth that I've been too busy to read so far. Hopefully get to that over next few days.

Lot of good stuff on her Bandcamp. I'd take all that over the live Love in Exile performance linked upthread (because Vijay's long-ass ruminations), but haven't yet heard the album or tour bits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6QNNxCf-3s

New Aftab, Iyer, Ismaily on NPR Tiny Desk (there's also an older Tiny Desk with Aftab with her own band)