Arooj Aftab

★★★★ Vulture Prince NEW AMSTERDAM. DL/LP

An extraordinary new voice, from Pakistan via Brooklyn.

Perhaps the only album this month to have an “olfactory accompaniment”, Arooj Aftab’s Bandcamp page advertises that her third album can be bought with a bespoke perfume oil: “Clary sage,” apparently, “captures the cylindrical cloud that weaves through each song and the soothing nature of Arooj’s vocals.” Happily, Vulture Prince works fine without its scent. Pakistan-born and Brooklynbased, Aftab is a composer who threads Pakistani classical traditions, Western folk and chamber music, a little jazz, a little ethereal minimalism into a beguiling whole. Harp flourishes signal an affinity with Joanna Newsom, but Aftab’s voice is very different: closer to Sade, even. Last Night, meanwhile, sets a Rumi poem to a folk-reggae skank, of sorts, but it’s Saans Lo that provides the key to this wonderful record; a kind of Sufi analogue to Elizabeth Fraser and This Mortal Coil’s version of Song To The Siren.

John Mulvey