The year 1990 was a pivotal one for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Since his appearance at Womad festival five years prior, the Pakistani qawwali singer had been gaining notoriety in the west for the raw, buffeting power of his remarkable voice and his nimble, rapid-fire vocalisations – often within the same line of ancient Sufi poetry. In 1989, he began to depart from Sufi tradition, improvising vocals for Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, and in 1990 would release Mustt Mustt, a landmark qawwali fusion record that blended Sufi poems with producer Michael Brook’s dark palette of slap bass, reverb-laden percussion and electric guitar.
Yet, a few months before that crossover record, Khan recorded four traditional qawwali compositions with Brook that never saw the light of day. Recently rediscovered and remastered, the resulting album Chain of Light – released 27 years after his death at the age of 48 in 1997 – provides an extraordinary example of Khan’s voice at the height of his powers.
Opening with a standard of Khan’s qawwali repertoire, Ya Allah Ya Rehman, a lively tabla groove and harmonium melody soon give way to a vibrato-laden, keening vocalisation from Khan, effortlessly conveying yearning emotion. As the 10-minute composition continues, Khan’s family Party of singers bolsters his sweeping syllabics, sticking to the same undulating tabla rhythm to create a ceaseless forward momentum. The following number, Aaj Sik Mitran Di , plays more freely with tempo, allowing Khan’s voice to weave through a languorous harmonium melody before increasing pace to reach a double-time showcase of stunning, fast-paced sargam vocalisations, ascending to convey the song’s spiritual ecstasy.
It is on Ya Gaus Ya Meeran that Khan reaches his peak. An Urdu qawwali the Party had never recorded before, the nine-minute composition constantly subverts expectation, switching tempo and rhythmic patterns to leave only Khan’s voice as our anchor. As he trips lightly over close harmony and counterpoint, he reaches the soaring, full-throated cry that gives the record its title: “Every breath of mine is related to his chain of light.”
It is a remarkable discovery. Rather than a posthumous cash-grab of cobbled-together offcuts, Chain of Light is a uniform body of work, cementing Khan’s mastery of the Sufi tradition before he revolutionised it.
Also out this month
British-Ghanaian singer KOG releases his latest album, Don’t Take My Soul (Pura Vida Sounds, a joyous blend of afrobeat horn fanfares and swung hip-hop rhythms, peaking on the gentle melody of Pat Thomas highlife feature Odo Sronko. Pakistani improvisational quartet Jaubi push further into jazz arrangements on their expansive fourth album, A Sound Heart (Riaz Records), artfully blending the stringed sarangi with a big band swing and Mingus-influenced bluesy riffs. Brazilian rapper Laíz & The New Love Experience releases a remarkably self-assured debut, Ela Partíu (Agogo Records), combining tropicalia and samba with her languid flow to produce a lively modern Latin American take on hip-hop.
