Khedmat Be Khalq

I stumbled upon this album by chance, via Bandcamp, and I am glad its algorithms led me there.

I travelled through Afghanistan quite recently, and did a roadtrip to the North; listening to this brought back memories. Of massive Norouz celebrations in Mazar-e-Sharif with a variety of spiritual music performed loudly and simultaneously, classical rubab recordings played from distorting ghetto blasters, cheerful, over-amplified wedding bands playing around every corner. Muslimgauze and Holger Czukay would posthumously be jealous.

Naujawanan Baidar aka N R Safi is of half-Afghan descent. In Arizona (US) he founded the legendary neo-psych-folk-noise ensemble The Myrrors (think The National visits the Hindu Kush), before more recently settling in the Netherlands, where he produces elusive vinyl- and cassette-only albums of various acts including himself. Khedmat Be Khalq originated after attempts to start the next band failed. It is a collection of, as he says, ‘ramshackle demo/home-recording[s],’ which, however, led to a remarkably coherent album, creating a joyous and simultaneously melancholy parallel Afghan world. Afghanistan is in a difficult situation, but Naujawanan Baidar means ‘enlightened youth’ and ‘Khedmat Be Khalq’ ‘service to the people.’ Musical heritage can be a source of hope. Safi wants to evoke and encourage “opportunity… for the children of the diaspora to look to their roots.”