In what is, to me at least, the most momentuous bit of music news this week, there's a 'lost' Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan album. Chain of Light, out Friday from Real World Records, offers up four recordings from 1990 from the legendary vocalist. The record is, of course, essential.
These four tracks from the greatest qawwali singer of all time are powerful reminders of Nusrat's skills. Sung in Urdu, Punjabi, and Persian, the selections make up an album as uniform in its effect as those Nusrat released on this label beginning with 1989's Shahen-Shah. The sleeve notes to Chain of Light have this bit from musician and producer Michael Brook which seems necessary to share:
'"It was all seat of the pants stuff," Brook says of their many sessions. "Nusrat carried a book of lyrics with him and he would be trying out new ideas all the time – when he settled on one he liked, he would head into the live room and launch right in. He'd only stop when we waved through the window and told him to, otherwise they'd go for as long as they wanted!"'
During the second track, the Sufi-inspired "Aaj Sik Mitran Di", Nusrat's voice spirals to the skies, the tabla keeping count behind it. It's not a stretch to compare these vocals to a Coltrane solo; both come from an almost mystical place of yearning for the divine. Differences in religion between listener and artist mean little when the music is so clearly transformative.
That was the enduring strength of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He could take a form that was hundreds of years old and make it seem so vital, so alive that a listener was sort of stunned. As a showcase for Nusrat's art, and the art of his party, this record is superb. It's more traditional than one might have expected given that Nusrat's work with Michael Brook extended to the modern modern-sounding Night Song. And there's a quality here that feels wonderfully live, as if these were quickly recorded as they unfolded, which is why I wanted to share that Michael Brook quote. Chain of Light is as much an essential Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan recording as any of those on this imprint, or any other which Westerners have access to.
Chain of Light by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on Real World Records is out tomorrow (Friday, September 20, 2024).
[Photo: Guido Harari]