THE A.V. CLUB: Dinosaur Jr. shreds and Arooj Aftab stuns: 5 new releases we love
THE A.V. CLUB: Dinosaur Jr. shreds and Arooj Aftab stuns: 5 new releases we love
BY ALEX MCLEVY
“There’s a spare beauty that comes through in nearly every second of Prince Vulture, the second album from Pakistani-born (but New York-based) Arooj Aftab. The singer and composer fuses elements of traditional Pakistani music, jazz, classical, and more, yet that heady stew of influences combine to form a remarkably cohesive and singular musical style. Whether inventively reworking well-known Pakistani numbers like ‘Mohabbat,’ new takes on live favorites (the Rumi poem ‘Last Night’), or wholly original songs (opener ‘Baghon Main,’ the almost Bjork-like bustle of closer ‘Suroor’), her voice sails along, weaving in and out of the minimal arrangements like an intimate narrator recounting stories of loss, love, and growth. Inspired by ‘revisiting places I’ve called mine, places that don’t necessarily exist anymore,’ as Aftab puts it, the album conjures visions of meditative release, the tracks ebbing and flowing with acoustic instrumentation and the soft thrum of the rhythms. It’s new age music in the best sense of the term: thoughtful and inspirational, fusing international aesthetics in a supple and quiet manner that brings out a mood of purgative introspection. The word ‘haunting’ gets overused, but Aftab earns it in spades.”