Soothe operator
New Zealand Listener|January 20 - 26 2024
Grammy-winning Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab is bringing her meditative, minimalist music to New Zealand festivals.
GRAHAM REID
Soothe operator

Arooj Aftab’s life has been one of movement: from country to country and through musical styles, which reached a peak when her sublime, spiritually calming song Mohabbat picked up Best Global Music Performance at the 2022 Grammys.

At 38, New York-based Aftab has come a long way from playing Oasis’s Wonderwall for friends at high school in Lahore to having Mohabbat on Barack Obama’s 2021 summer playlist. The song came from her hypnotic Vulture Prince album, which is mostly in Urdu but included a subtle reggae groove on the English-language Last Night, based on a poem by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi.

The album – on numerous “best-of 2021” lists, including the Listener’s – won her Pakistan’s prestigious Pride of Performance award.

Vulture Prince is a rare album that conveys rest and calm, despite being born of personal grief and loss. “The impression it gives you is meditative, calming and ambient,” she says from her home in Brooklyn. “Then other layers open up. It has depth in it that I designed, but that meditative quality, for sure.”

People take comfort in it, as many Aids patients seeking consolation in the 80s found in the holy minimalism of Arvo Pärt’s austere Tabula Rasa: “It sounds like the motion of angels’ wings,” said one. Or the 1994 Jan Garbarek/Hilliard Ensemble’s Officium, a pairing of soprano saxophone and medieval chants that sold more than 250,000 physical copies and now has millions of streams.

Esta historia es de la edición January 20 - 26 2024 de New Zealand Listener.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición January 20 - 26 2024 de New Zealand Listener.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE NEW ZEALAND LISTENERVer todo
First-world problem
New Zealand Listener

First-world problem

Harrowing tales of migrants attempting to enter the US highlight the political failure to fully tackle the problem.

time-read
3 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Applying intelligence to AI
New Zealand Listener

Applying intelligence to AI

I call it the 'Terminator Effect', based on the premise that thinking machines took over the world.

time-read
2 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Nazism rears its head
New Zealand Listener

Nazism rears its head

Smirky Höcke, with his penchant for waving with a suspiciously straight elbow and an open palm, won't get to be boss of either state.

time-read
2 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Staying ahead of the game
New Zealand Listener

Staying ahead of the game

Will the brave new world of bipartisanship that seems to be on offer with an Infrastructure Commission come to fruition?

time-read
4 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Grasping the nettle
New Zealand Listener

Grasping the nettle

Broccoli is horrible. It smells, when being cooked, like cat pee.

time-read
3 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Hangry? Eat breakfast
New Zealand Listener

Hangry? Eat breakfast

People who don't break their fast first thing in the morning report the least life satisfaction.

time-read
3 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Chemical reaction
New Zealand Listener

Chemical reaction

Nitrates in processed meats are well known to cause harm, but consumed from plant sources, their effect is quite different.

time-read
4 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Me and my guitar
New Zealand Listener

Me and my guitar

Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp sticks to the familiar for her Dunedin concerts.

time-read
2 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
Time is on my side
New Zealand Listener

Time is on my side

Age does not weary some of our much-loved musicians but what keeps them on the road?

time-read
7 minutos  |
September 9, 2024
The kids are not alright
New Zealand Listener

The kids are not alright

Nuanced account details how China's blessed generation has been replaced by one consumed by fear and hopelessness.

time-read
4 minutos  |
September 9, 2024