Love in Exile

This extraordinary collaboration can broadly be described as Sufi electronica, but it transcends musical genres. Arooj Aftab is a grammy-award winning Pakistani vocalist, composer, arranger and producer based in the US who sings in Urdu. She calls her music neo-Sufi and has released three albums under her own name as well as performing songs for film soundtracks. Vijay Iyer is a prolific pianist, composer and educator with particular interest in improvisational music. Shazad Ismaily is a multi-instrumentalist session musician and composer. As a trio they have been performing together since 2018 and their spontaneity and improvisational abilities have led them to an almost extra-sensory level of performance.

Iyer's piano and surging electronics provide a foundation for the music while Ismaily's bass and Moog synthesizer form a pulsing base over which Aftab's beautifully spiritual voice can gracefully flow. She describes the synchronicity as being like a shoal of fish. The general theme (named in the title) reflects the profound emotions of separation. Despite the gravitas of the subject matter, Love in Exile is a wonderfully uplifting and engaging record, which should appeal to lovers of ghazal, qawwali and raga; and equally to fans of minimalism and experimental musicians like Michael Nyman, Terry Riley and Philip Glass.