You don’t have to be a believer to be carried away by the explosion of spirituality contained in the piece that opens this album. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, titan of Pakistani music, alters the senses with ‘Ya Allah Ya Rehman’, the piece that opens Chain Of Light, the album lost 34 years ago and recently found in the sound archives of Peter’s Real World label Gabriel: “Oh, merciful God / I love your greatness / my life and the entire universe are yours / and you are the only one who deserves to be worshiped.” What’s more: even if one professes some religion or feels touched by divine grace, it is difficult to know, if one does not understand Urdu, what the so-called king of music is singing, in the absence of a more precise definition. qawwalithe Pakistani Pavarotti or, more traditionally, the Pakistani Shrimp.
Chain Of Lightconfigured by four pieces of qawwali traditional, was recorded in 1990, just at the time when Peter Gabriel, promoter of Nusrat’s career outside the Indian subcontinent, asked the Canadian guitarist Michael Brook to put his talent and his instrument at the singer’s service to make the songs grow. roots and attract new audiences to the vocal mystique of the Pakistani giant. The result of that meeting was titled Mustt Musttand in addition to Brook’s guitar it featured bass, piano, synthesizers and other instruments. Real World focused on that album and saved the most classic records for a better occasion.
Now, unless Radio Pakistan or some local record label discovers some forgotten recording on their shelves, Chain Of Lightmixed by Craig Conard and Brook, is the album that closes Nusrat’s production. A group of eight singers and musicians accompanies him. ‘Ya Allah Ya Rehman’ is a classic qawwalicommon in the singer’s repertoire. ‘Aaj Sik Mitran Di’ features a Punjabi text by poet and mystic saint Pir Meher Ali Shah; on the album it lasts just under 10 minutes, but in live shows Nusrat used to stretch it up to half an hour. ‘Ya Gaus Ya Meeran’, with lyrics in Urdu, is a brilliant paradigm of crossing rhythms and also of the influence of qawwali on music such as flamenco. And in ‘Khabram Raseed Imshab’, sung in Persian and attributed to Amir Khusro, considered the father of qawwalithe gazelles represent supplication, the longing for the arrival of the lover (Allah, that is), with an apotheotic finale of intoxicating voices and tempo in crescendo.
Sufi devotional music, the most tolerant branch of Islam, of a responsorial nature, the qawwali comes from the root qawl (literally, declaration of the prophet). Voices, harmonium and dholak or tabla make up the classic combo for your interpretation. Different styles of Hindustani music intervene in its structure: classical music, based on ragas (melodic schemes), enriched with improvisation; semi-classical music or love songs, played in 16, 14 or six beats, and light, melodic and rhythmically free music, which uses poems such as the ghazal. Technically it draws from Arabic, Persian, Indian and Turkish sources. Qawwal calls the singer and kawwalito the content of the piece. Creation of a spiritual nature, basically it is a prayer that leads to ecstasy, to trance.
Son and nephew of musicians qawwalNusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997) lived her career intensely (her name means the king who opens the door to success), cut short at 48 due to various ailments. His prodigious voice astonished very diverse audiences and aroused admiration in rock singers and film directors. He was the magician who in every performance put the dynamics, the height, the duration and almost the timbre in check. The sinuosity of his melismatic and syllabic singing and the amazing handling of the technique were impressive (and impressive). sargamconsisting of singing the notes and not the words. In 1985 he participated in Womad, the festival created by Gabriel, sharing the stage with artists such as New Order, Tabu Ley Le Rochereau, The Fall and Penguin Café Orchestra. The crush was immediate and Nusrat signed a contract with Real World in 1989. By then, the Pakistani had already conquered Paris with a series of magnificent concerts, performed at the Théâtre de Ville in 1985 and 1988, which were recorded by Radio France and published by Ocora on five CDs, reissued in 1997. Other live shows such as Traditional Sufi Qawwalis. Live in Londonand Intoxicated Spiritcaptured in Pakistan, show the joyous vitality of the maestro on stage.
With Real World, Nusrat published Shahen Shah (1989); the mentioned Mustt Mustt (1990); Shahbaaz (1991); love & Devotion (1992), The Last Prophet (1994); Night Song (1996), also with Michael Brook, and Dust to Gold (2000). After the musician’s death, Star Rise was released, which contains nine remixes of songs from the albums recorded with Brook, made by Talving Singh, Asian Dub Foundation, Black Star Liner, Nittin Sawhney and The Dhol Foundation & Fun’Da’Mental. inter alia. In 2001 he came out Body and Soulfour pieces recorded by Nusrat in her home in Lahore, Pakistan, and in 2019 it was reissued Night Songand the unreleased recording came to light Live at Womad 1985. Cinema was also nourished by Nusrat’s magic: in addition to using her songs in Bollywood film soundtracks (in some cases, through piracy), Peter Gabriel included one of her performances in The last temptation of Christ and also featured him on the song ‘Signal To Noise’, from his album Up. And his voice was also heard on the soundtracks of Death Penalty (along with that of Eddie Vedder, vocalist of Pearl Jam), The Prayer Cycle and The Queen of the Bandits. “Every breath of mine is related to your chain of light,” we hear near the end of ‘Ya Gaus Ya Meeran’, a deprecation to the saints that concludes with “a million thanks because my connection with them is eternal.” Just like his voice.
Chain of Light
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Real World / Harmonia Mundi
