Back catalogue: Folk/Americana

Review: Arooj Aftab's Night Reign is a stunning trip into the depths of the night, where inspiration thrives. Departing from themes of loss in her previous work, Aftab crafts an album rich with renewal and romance. Collaborations with artists like Cautious Clay and Moor Mother add layers to the lush soundscape, creating a cinematic experience. Each track, from the haunting 'Autumn Leaves' to the soulful 'Bolo Na,' weaves together to form a narrative of surrender and transformation. Aftab's voice, accompanied by intricate instrumentation, guides listeners through the darkness, offering moments of introspection and possibility. Night Train is a chance to throw yourself into the beauty and mystery of deep music, emerging renewed and transformed.

Review: Arooj Aftab's Night Reign is a stunning trip into the depths of the night, where inspiration thrives. Departing from themes of loss in her previous work, Aftab crafts an album rich with renewal and romance. Collaborations with artists like Cautious Clay and Moor Mother add layers to the lush soundscape, creating a cinematic experience. Each track, from the haunting 'Autumn Leaves' to the soulful 'Bolo Na,' weaves together to form a narrative of surrender and transformation. Aftab's voice, accompanied by intricate instrumentation, guides listeners through the darkness, offering moments of introspection and possibility. Night Train is a chance to throw yourself into the beauty and mystery of deep music, emerging renewed and transformed.

Review: Brooklyn-based Pakistani vocalist Aroof Aftab presents her third studio album, and a record that has the power to transport listeners pretty much anywhere. While steeped in traditions stereotypically associated with her homeland, ears more attuned will quickly pick up on just how divergent this is. Whether you'd consider it a classical album is down to how you gauge that genre term, we'd say it has grown broad enough over the past century to definitely include this, but ultimately even that seems reductive.

Elements of poetry, ambient trance, jazz, minimalism, and new age, it's a spiritual and musical experience based around themes of discovery, loss, memory, and intimate connections with the Earth. Sonically, that translates as something that's at once sublime and yet also surprising, combining a multitude of influences from aeons of songwriting to create something that could not have existed in any previous era.