Arooj Aftab
Arooj Aftab: Night Reign
Verve, 2024
Some songs can only be heard at night…
“The night,” Arooj Aftab confesses, “is my biggest source of inspiration.” By trial or intuition, the GRAMMY® winning artist has come to understand that these still moments of cover uniquely enable healing, desire, shelter, love – each essential elements of life and living, of intimate relation to one another.
Night Reign is a perfumed, public garden of renewal, peaking the senses with each composition, each turn of phrase, each modulation. Stepping away from, though never forgetting, the grief and loss that animated her GRAMMY® Award-winning track “Mohabbat” and album Vulture Prince (2021), on which she faced what can too quickly and easily be taken away, Aftab appears here with original music and in yet another form: as bard of everyday possibility, quietude and life-altering romance.
The music - which features contributions from artists Cautious Clay, Vijay Iyer, Moor Mother, and more - holds visual context, a cinematic soundscape that brings life to the divinely ominous space we call the dark. Within the realm of darkness, Night Reign points to layers of depth that blend each song into a narrative of surrender. The majesty of this intrepid work is Aftab’s voice in ample conspiracy toward a jagged world made softer – promising, even – by tones and tales conceived with others. “I want to make music with and for everybody,” Aftab confidently declares. Night Reign is that chance and its triumph. Join and be made anew.
Tracklist
Side A
- Aey Nehin [5:44]
- Na Gul [5:27]
- Autumn Leaves (ft. James Francies) [4:47]*
- Whiskey [5:04]*
- Zameen (ft. Chocolate Genius, Inc.) [4:16]
Side B
- Raat Ki Rani [6:13] VERSION EXCLUSIVE TO VINYL
- Saaqi (ft. Vijay Iyer) [6:44]
- Bolo Na (ft. Moor Mother & Joel Ross) [6:12]
- Last Night (Reprise) (ft. Cautious Clay, Kaki King, Maeve Gilchrist) [5:07]*
*English-language track. All other tracks sung in Urdu.
Please note that each vinyl is unique and the colors may appear slightly different from the image displayed.
Tracklist
Side A
- Aey Nehin [5:44]
- Na Gul [5:27]
- Autumn Leaves (ft. James Francies) [4:47]*
- Whiskey [5:04]*
- Zameen (ft. Chocolate Genius, Inc.) [4:16]
Side B
- Raat Ki Rani [6:13] VERSION EXCLUSIVE TO VINYL
- Saaqi (ft. Vijay Iyer) [6:44]
- Bolo Na (ft. Moor Mother & Joel Ross) [6:12]
- Last Night (Reprise) (ft. Cautious Clay, Kaki King, Maeve Gilchrist) [5:07]*
*English-language track. All other tracks sung in Urdu.
Tracklist
- Aey Nehin
- Na Gul
- Autumn Leaves (ft. James Francies)
- Bolo Na (ft. Moor Mother & Joel Ross)
- Saaqi (ft. Vijay Iyer)
- Last Night (Reprise) (ft. Cautious Clay, Kaki King, Maeve Gilchrist)
- Raat Ki Rani
- Whiskey
- Zameen (ft. Chocolate Genius, Inc.)
