Rare opportunity to experience a masterful meeting between ghazal singing and experimental electronica.
The meeting between singer and author Ali Sethi’s ghazal singing and the ever unpredictable producer and composer Nicolás Jaar might be one of the most fruitful musical results of the lockdowns in the spring of 2020. In Oslo this fall, the audience will get a rare chance to experience this collaboration in concert.
Confined to his home during the early days of Covid-19, Ali Sethi decided to use his Instagram account to play around with Hindustani classical ragas and songs. He also experimented with loops from the Chilean-American producer Nicolás Jaar’s album Telas.
Jaar is known as one half of the band Darkside, and has a large and varied solo output, garnering both critical and public acclaim. Sethi had been a long time fan of his music, absorbing the sounds at bars and rooftop parties across Lahore and London. The sense of adventure in Jaar’s improvisational approach reminded him of the ghazals and qawwalis he grew up hearing in Pakistan, and he was able to latch on to something in this music. When informed of Sethi’s experiments by a mutual friend, Jaar got in touch with the Pakistani-American poet and singer, which resulted in the musical partnership you can hear on the critically lauded 2023 release Intiha.
It is sparse and striking music, challenging and comforting at the same time. Jaar has said that he hopes the duo has created a sound that can operate on multiple levels. More and more listeners around the world agree that it does.
