Dust to Gold

Chronique

Three years after the qawwali star's death in 1997, Real World began releasing material "discovered" in Nusrat's hometown, Lahore, Pakistan. These four pieces were evidently recorded there just months before he died, but they sound closer to the pristine Real World Studios sessions than to the earlier Pakistani material available on reissue releases. Here and there, one detects a little more rasp than usual in that fabulous voice, but the music is fresh and the tempos are, if anything, super energized, almost as if the party sensed it didn't have much time. The lead track, "Khawaja Tum Hi Ho" ("Master It Is Only You"), strikes with ferocity and doesn't let up for over 15 minutes. This and the second selection are as intense as the music on Shahbaaz (Real World 1991), perhaps the qawwal's fieriest studio session. The third selection, with it's Zen-like title "Koi Hai Na Ho Ga" ("There Was No One, There Will Not Be Anyone") unfolds over a clopping rhythm. Nusrat's voice rips and lashes its way through a moody refrain and the soaring counter melodies of vocal soloist Mujahed Mubarak Ali Khan. The closer "Noor-E-Khuda Hai Husn-E-Sarapa Rasool" ("The Light of God Is the Embodiment of the Prophet") is cooler. Like the final track on many Nusrat releases, it unfolds in a cantering triplet rhythm, letting the listener down gently from the spiritual heights of the earlier material. If there are more recordings of this quality in the vault, the world needs to hear them.
© Banning Eyre /TiVo