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Pakistan-born, New York-based singer-songwriter
Arooj Aftab, who had studied composition at Berklee College of Music,
led an acoustic combo on
Bird Under Water (2014), containing just five compositions in
a contemplative kind of world-music inspired by
Sufi spirit, Industani classical music and jazz improvisation.
Flute and voice duet like muezzins in
Man Kunto Maula (8:17) over a gentle bed of almost psychedelic guitar strumming.
The atmosphere is reminiscent of Deuter and Karunesh, and especially of the metaphysical sacrality of
Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra.
Initially Lullaby (3:52) sounds like an excerpt from one of
John Fahey's guitar journeys, but then becomes
a dense and loud French-tinged chanson.
Aey Na Balam (5:40) instead flirts with modern Arab dance music.
Her voice floats ghostly in Baghon Main Pade Jhoole (7:23), a
slow-motion, subdued jam of percussion, guitar and accordion
Siren Islands (New Amsterdam, 2018) is a less spiritual and more indulgent work, where the vocals play second fiddle to the synthesizers, and the ethnic acoustic instruments are left out.
Her vocals drown inside an electronic vortex in Island No 1 (8:01),
a piece that is basically bubbling ambient music.
Island No 2 (7:57) is a dense symphony of psychedelic echoes in continuous motion.
Something of her old hymnody resurfaces in Island No 3 (17:44), but mostly the piece is dominated by comic music with a thick timbre reminiscent of the new age era. The 18-minute piece overstays its welcome.
Much better is the space odyssey of Ovid's Metamorphoses (15:11), another lengthy piece but this time better paced and peopled by countless alien sounds in an otherworldly atmosphere that is lulled by galactic waves.
She abandoned again the electronic instruments and opted for
sorrowful chamber ethnic folk music on
Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam, 2021),
a set of traditional Urdu ghazals and a Rumi poem set to an accompaniment of
harp, guitar and violin.
The songs are more traditional than before.
The real protagonist is the instrumental jamming, notably in
Baghon Main and in the second half of
Saans Lo (with a droning trombone leading into an eerie ending).
Where the imagination of the instrumentalists is restrained or constrained,
the voice has to fill the void, and at best
(Diya Hai)
she evokes
the bleak introverted melancholy of
Nick Drake.
The best combination probably comes in Inayaat (7:47), which is both a somber and dreaming ballad and a touching instrumental jam.
Mohabbat (7:42) is a lively version of these ideas, with
country-style finger-picking and a pastoral flute intermezzo.
She has good intentions, but the music is too similar to some new-age music of the 1980s (for those old enough to remember it).
She also turns into night-club chanteuse in the soul-tinged
reggae-paced Last Night, which feels out of context.
(Copyright © 2021 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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