#urdu music

[batmobilestires]

Disco Deewane by Nazia Hassan is very Discowing coded

[theserenityinviolence]

alag hi hai agar manzile toh kyu na alag hi rakhe hum raaste?

but

aisi zindagi ka kya jo tum zindagi mein ho ke meri zindagi na ban sake?

[strayloveletter]

i have finally discovered kaavish (besides faasle) and ughh i just love desi angst

[khaperai]

Old Pakistani cassette covers

[mywifeleftme]

294: Nashenas // Life is a Heavy Burden

Life is a Heavy Burden Nashenas 2022, Strut (Bandcamp)

Nashenas is one of Afghanistan’s most beloved twentieth century singers. Born in Kandahar in 1935, he was raised in Karachi, British India (now Pakistan) before his family returned to Afghanistan during his adolescence. By his early 20s he had become a popular vocalist, with a weekly national radio slot singing traditional poetry, adaptations of popular Bollywood songs, and (with increasing frequency) his own compositions in Dari and Pashto.

Most of his work is in the ghazal tradition, a form of Arabo-Persian poetic ode (classically a simultaneous address to an absent lover and to God) that has remained popular in the East for nearly 1,500 years. The songs have a meditative consistency of rhythm, his vocals carrying the melody as he accompanies himself with drones on the harmonium while a tabla player supplies percussion, verses broken by instrumental refrains that answer the vocal melody. Nashenas has a panged yet resigned style suitable to the form, never leaning into cheap emotional theatrics. He spools out his words patiently, great feeling leavened by enlightened reservation. I picture him with his eyes closed, sitting cross-legged as he hums and croons the words that billow from the incense burning within him till the room has filled with it. Despite the focus on his voice though, this is quite dynamic music: the drumming on songs like “Life is a Heavy Burden” provides a raw, intense counterpoint to Nashenas’s steady vocal, while the blissful harmonium drone of “I Am Happy Alone” finds a common note with the primary colours of music made by children, outsider folkies, and the untrained.

Physical media wasn’t common in Afghanistan when Nashenas was establishing himself, and radio broadcasts were the primary outlet for performers. What recordings he did make were largely for radio archives, and many of these were apparently destroyed in the wars that have ravaged the region for decades. As a result, little of Nashenas’s prime is well-documented, and prior to this compilation virtually none of what does exist had been released in the West. Life is a Heavy Burden: The Songs and Poetry of Nashenas collects highlights from a brief run of Iranian 45 pressings of Radio Afghanistan recordings from the late ‘50s. The liners elaborate:

Although hard to fully confirm, it appeared these records were part of an arrangement between someone in Radio Afghanistan and Royal, one of the major labels in Iran. …Recordings were presumably supplied to the pressing plant in Tehran to be manufactured and then sold to the Afghan diaspora in the country, or exported back to Afghanistan. It was ultimately unsuccessful, with a few singles released by Nashenas, Zaland, his wife Sara, and others such as Ustad Mahwash, Ghulam Dastagir Shaida, and Ahmad Wali. Whoever arranged it apparently did not inform the artists themselves!

You’d never know how screamingly rare these pieces are, or that they were not sourced from masters, from the job Strut Records has done with Life is a Heavy Burden. The fidelity is brilliant, clearly of another epoch in terms of technology but unmarred by the dust and rough handling endured by near-70-year-old second-hand discs. I’d recommend this one to anyone with an interest in mid-century music from the Middle East and South Asia, or its influence on Western pop and experimental music from the ‘60s onward.

294/365

[yoursohailakhtaraadil-blog-blog]

Harr Ghadi Teray Aanay Ka, Sohail Akhtar Aadil, Original Urdu shayari, P...

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[alittttlebitofeverything]

🎵: Tu jhoom💜

🎤: Aabida Perveen and Naseebo Lal🧡

“I am not in my right mind, I don’t know anything.

I just sing in my madness.

Even if I make the whole world happy,

I know I still won’t find peace.

Even if I find all the happiness,

What will I have after I die?

I reason with my heart that there is nothing in your control (there is a higher power).

So relax, just swirl (let it go)”

[maihonhassan]

Imtiaz Ali and his obsession with “Uss paar”

Laila Majnu — “Paharon ke uss paar”

Rockstar — “Ghalat aur sahi ke uss paar”

Chamkila — “Mujhe jana hai uss paar”

[khudkalami]

تم نجانے کسی جہاں میں کھو گئے

ہم بھری دنیا میں تنہا ہو گئے

tum najane kis jahan mein kho gaye

hum bhari dunia mein tanha hogaye

[shadowseductress]

"moon is beautiful, isn't it?" is fine but "chand teri roshni ka halka sa ek saaya hai" hits different.

[soul-from-another-era]

Me about to do anything:

"Alright i need some music first "

[thatstolenpayal]

but when ahmad faraz wrote,

“ranjish hi sahi, dil hi dukhane ke liye aa

aa phirse, mujhe chhodke jaane ke liye aa”

[chyaptagolap]

if you listen to old bollywood, bangla oldies, urdu ghazals, hindi and bangla coke studio, desi hiphop, bangla rock and folk fusion we should be married rn

[oyeevarnika]

सोचूँ तो सारी उम्र मोहब्बत में कट गई

देखूँ तो एक शख़्स भी मेरा नहीं हुआ

- जॉन एलिया

Forrest gump x Jaun Elia

[mywifeleftme]

39: Arooj Aftab // Vulture Prince

Vulture Prince Arooj Aftab 2021, New Amsterdam (Bandcamp)

In 2021 Arooj Aftab’s third LP Vulture Prince unexpectedly blew up, at least in the way that sedate music for adults can be said to blow up—rapturous reviews, a quarter of a million listeners on Spotify, and a spot on Barack Obama’s annual focus-tested-to-hell year-end playlist. (Did you know he was listening to tUnE-yArDs when they finally compromised Osama Bin Laden to a permanent end?) An unusual outcome for a predominantly Urdu-language release with an average track length of 6:30, to be sure, but Vulture Prince was the right album at the right time.

Vulture Prince’s languid, melancholy, exquisitely arranged sound will be legible to a broad coalition of listeners, from fans of jazz, to post-rock, to New Age, to indie folk. Despite receiving a Grammy nod for Best New Artist, Aftab is a seasoned composer in her mid-30s, working here with sensitive musicians in various small combos (mostly harp, double bass, and violin, occasionally augmented by guitar, percussion, flugelhorn, and additional strings). She trusts the players to bring their own sensibilities to her songs, resulting in performances that are rich with subtle instrumental flourishes and embellishments.

This is neither precisely an ‘eastern’ nor ‘western’ album. Though Aftab’s voice evokes the passionate, melismatic runs of great ghazal singers like Abida Parveen or Nashenas, she sings these traditional poems with the intimate, smoky hush of a Leslie Feist or even a Norah Jones. Though her slow-developing melodies often have the flavour and cadence of Sufi music, she composes for western chamber instruments. This makes sense: Aftab grew up in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but received her musical education in Boston and seasoning in New York’s jazz scene. This is precisely what makes Vulture Prince such a prime candidate for crossover success: its language and mood mark it as ostensibly ‘foreign,’ but not in such a way that it challenges western audiences’ notions of what is pleasant or beautiful.

Mounting that sort of challenge isn’t the ‘job’ of an artist—their job is to make something distinctive out of the materials experience has provided them. Vulture Prince is a beguiling product of Aftab’s diverse influences and marks the emergence of a songwriter of great promise. If it also serves as an enticement for listeners to stray further still from their cultural comfort zone, that’s a healthy bonus.

39/365

[crookedneighbour20]

دلِ نادان تجھے ہوا کیا ہے؟ آخر اس درد کی دوا کیا ہے؟ ہم کو ان سے وفا کی ہے امید، جو نہیں جانتے وفا کیا ہے۔

dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai? aankhir iss dard ki dawa kya hai? humko unse wafa ki hai ummeed, jo nahin jaante wafa kya hai.