Arooj Aftab

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

nice will check

xp thanks dow, yeah that's a real gem

Bonus track with Anoushka Shankar which will be on the Deluxe edition of Vulture Prince
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDff_3V_5E
Udhero Na

Arooj describes it as a track dearest to her heart, written in 2005 and never released. It translates to "Please undo" and refers to the "fleeting emotional moment when the thought of someone from a very old and ‘passed’ relationship just pops into your head”.

Maybe everyone knew that song already, but I listened to it again in the bath two days ago after a full day in bed nursing what proved to be not the flu but an infection, and thinking of the dear friend I lost three weeks ago, and it was stunningly beautiful and appropriate for grief, it resonated on the wall and slowed down time and brought the introspective outside.

bought a couple tracks on bandcamp today and included a message asking what her set time will be at coachella :) i'm sure it will be early in the day but we'll see.

She was nominated for best new artist Grammy, but just lost to Olivia Rodrigo

Maaan---not surprising of course, but

I thought it was just cool that they showed her! Very clearly!

Arooj won Best Global Music Performance. best in the world!!! they had to give Olivia something

A highly competitive category, full of highly respected legendary nominees. I am humbled and grateful for this win. Making a deeply personal and crossover music, in Urdu, and being seen for it… feels like a breakthrough. thank you AND congratulations ❤️ pic.twitter.com/FXyth4w9hK

— arooj aftab (@arooj_aftab) April 5, 2022

Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooj

She and her band were fantastic at Big Ears, even as an already-fan I was impressed.

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

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

― alpine static, Thursday, February 17, 2022 8:41 PM (one month ago)

Julie Byrne! Don't know how I didn't make that connection earlier.

what is Julie Byrne up to, for pete's sake

not to take away from Arooj ... super stoked for her, and that tweet is awesome

Congratulations to the sensational @arooj_aftab on being the first Pakistani singer to win a Grammy.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/XFWPGKK1il

— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) April 5, 2022

Anyone in Chicago want 2 tix for tonight's show? Happy to give them away. Wife got COVID and hate for them to go to waste.

Anyone see a show? Going up to Toronto the week and excited to catch her... at what seems to be the only non festival gig she's got booked.

I saw her live last month in a wonderful setting: a church in Amsterdam on a fully light summer evening. It was just her and two instrumentalists: Maeve Gilchrist on celtic harp and Petros Klampanis on double bass. Both play on some of the tracks of Vulture Prince, but here they carried all of the music, and it was sensational.

https://www.festivalinfo.nl/img/review/big/7848/7uhske9pwbnhlap3ty.jpg

I had expected a chamber music kind of performance, similar to her recent-ish Tiny Desk concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUYJ8_tBSSQ

…and I would have been totally fine with that, but it was nothing of the kind.
It would have been wonderful to hear Arooj sing live within any setup, her voice is amazing, but this bass-harp combo gave an extra dimension to her sound: it added grit and earthiness to the ethereal, making things so much more dynamic. It wasn’t just the bass that did this, mind, it was the interplay. harp and bass were rocking and rolling together, throbbing, percussive, droning - at one point it felt like they were taking off into the stratosphere and carrying us along with them. All the while, Arooj was treating herself to red wine and the audience to red roses. A mesmerizing experience.

This is the same setup, at a (Dutch) festival last October, but here the two instrumentalists are much more restrained still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPRuWiI2ZPQ

She seems to perform in ever-changing formations tho - clips from other recent performances show her with bass and guitar (at Sintra’s Palácio da Pena - speaking of amazing locations!) and guitar and violin (at Glastonbury).

saw her at Roskilde Festival, wonderful set, Gyan Riley on guitar (doing some wonderful flamenco type shredding) and Petros Klampanis on double bass

kind of a weird stage presence, she insisted on us not taking things too seriously

Woah, didn't even know she was touring... looks like Toronto show is sold out... have fun!

super excited to be seeing her in Montreal tomorrow night!

she insisted on us not taking things too seriously

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)

Is it just me or is this lovely new single giving Sade vibes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5IOeXg1jJY

Yep, trailer for this sure does

directed by Tessa Thompson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLE-B7_bSSw

this is the single and yeah it is very much giving sade vibes, i love it

gorgeous song and video

New album Night Reign coming May 31. Moor Mother guests on a track