Grammy winner Arooj Aftab drops latest album ‘Love In Exile’
The first Pakistani to secure the coveted Grammy Award, Arooj Aftab marks her career with another music album that adds to her already illustrious discography.
Aftab’s latest offering will be a collaboration between American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer, Aftab himself and bassist and Moog synthesizer Shahzad Ismaily. The trio will also be touring the States for their die-hard fans.
Originally formed in 2018, the trio is now preparing to delight its fans with melodic and catchy songs. The Udero Well Crooner took to Instagram to announce her latest album, titled love in exileon February 23rd.
Aftab captioned the post, “Wow this record is finally out in the world. A journey of listening and trusting, innovating and exploring, new stuff with ancestral touches, LOVE IN EXILE is the high art album of my dreams. Made in collaboration with very high beings Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, I feel like an adult now. Stream everywhere, the vinyl is nice too, you should get it. And we start our tour!
Discuss, reminisce and reveal their motives, plans and ambitions behind their collaboration Mohabbat The singer recalled working with “very lofty beings; Iyer and Ismaily” for it, expressing the feeling of growing up. “Streaming everywhere, the vinyl is nice too, you should get it. And we start our tour! Swipe for dates,” she added.
When asked by Recording Academy if the trio’s collaborative catalog is entirely improvised, pianist and Harvard professor Iyer explained, “I don’t even think ‘improvisation’ is the right word for it because it’s really just a co-composition is in real time. It doesn’t take solos or anything. It’s really, okay, well, that’s what the song is. Whatever happens now, this is the song. So what’s supposed to happen next in the song?”
The Rolling Stone‘s Brenna Ehrlich describes it best love in exile than “more like visiting some kind of beautiful, strange soundscape of strings, keys and breath”.
acc The guardThe album shows how the 38-year-old “balances her melismatic voice between completely percussion-free, almost atmospheric soundscapes”.
Recalling how she met Viajy, Aftab exclaimed, “I met Vijay at Merkin Hall in New York. I was invited to play a set before his set. He made this particular collaboration. I knew Vijay and his music from before and I always thought, ‘Wow, this guy, he’s amazing.’ When I met him I was a little intimidated. Maybe not intimidated, but definitely like, “Oh s- it’s Vijay.” But we did a little collaboration that night – just an improv thing – and it felt really great. I was so surprised that it was so simple and so beautiful and so musical. You don’t expect this to just happen, you know? You have to work hard to find that kind of musical collaborator. And Shahzad I had been [asked] a lot here and there in New York, ‘Hey, you know Shahzad?’”
Speaking about her love and enthusiasm while producing a song in the studio, Aftab said: “The approach is to pretend you’re an instrument to the extent that it’s possible as a singer. You need vowels and stuff, and you need words to really get things going. Sometimes the words are also the instrument. They are sometimes even the keys. So I had poem fragments. Some of it is from Vulture Prince. Some of it is from Bird Under Water and some of it is completely new. But I chose it based on the mood I felt the songs would go in musically. It’s not supposed to be the song. It’s not supposed to tell the story. I think I wanted the three of us to tell the story – not just me, the singer.”
On the professional front, Aftab was nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for Best New Artist, won a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Global Music Performance, and a 2022 Pride of Performance. Their recent albums include Siren Islands (2018) and vulture prince (2021).