Disc review | The new songs of Arooj Aftab, who is coming to the Flow festival, are intoxicating like nocturnal star-like flowers

Vocal, folk, jazz / album

Arooj Aftab: Night Reign. Verve.

★★★★★

Chop producing star-like blooms, the fragrant marigold is an ornamental plant of warm climates, whose sweet scent is strongest in the early hours of the morning.

Is it a coincidence that the singer and songwriter Arooj Aftab refers to this plant often mistaken for jasmine in his new song Raat Ki Rani, even now in his mother tongue urdu? Probably not. Already from the title of Aftab’s fifth album Night Reign it can be assumed that its songs take place in the most intoxicating moment of the marigold flower, between sunset and sunrise.

Silenced by noises and sensitizing the senses, the night time seems like a perfect frame for the music of Arooj Aftab, 39, because it is almost entirely reduced, with few gestures and leisurely. And above all, so that at the core of the songs, which are mainly carried by harp and guitars, is his distinctive, speaking voice. Therefore, it is not surprising that one of his key inspirations is Billie Holidaythe human-voiced icon of jazz.

Aftab however, my own style is completely different – ​​from another time, from another background, from another place. In the absence of better definitions, it has been characterized by high-level “global music”, whose representative he has been nominated for a Grammy five times and won once.

The reason is at least partly a life story, as Aftab was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in Pakistan, but has lived in the United States for the last twenty years, where he moved to study at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. For good reason, Aftab is pained by the fact that a non-Westerner is often asked about his cultural roots, as if they were factors that inevitably define music.

But it is true that in a global world, influences mix into hard-to-digest syntheses where everyone can hear their own. That’s why Aftab himself avoids creating and locking in expectations in his recent interview. His genres include indie, soft pop, rock, folk and alternative jazz at the same time, or what everyone imagines hearing.

Here a good experiential touchstone is the album’s only borrowed song, which has become a jazz standard in the United States Autumn Leaveswhich is an English version of the French chanson Les Feuilles mortes (1945) and which has been recorded in Finnish as well Dead leaves. But what is it reduced like this: first percussive and then carried away by a lingering electric piano solo?

Autumn Leaves is also an excellent example of how Aftab, who arranged his songs, has an ear for the visitors, many of whom have profiled themselves as jazz musicians. Among other things, he is a pianist Vijay Iyerdouble bassist Linda May Han Oh and vibraphonist Joel Ross, all familiar from concerts in Finland. The most unexpected is still a rock star Elvis Costellowho plays a Wurlitzer electric piano in one song.

But Nigth Rhine the five stars are entirely due to Arooj Aftab, about as intoxicating as the nocturnal, star-like flowers of the marigold.

Arooj Aftab will perform at the Flow festival in Helsinki on Friday, August 9.