Intiha
Nicolas Jaar
- LP
- Label
- Other People
In a triumph of cross-cultural experimentation, Pakistani singer-songwriter Ali Sethi and Chilean musician Nicolás Jaar join forces for a collaborative album, ‘Intiha’, out November 17th via Jaar’s Other People imprint.
'Intiha' is an outgrowth of Jaar’s 2020 album Telas, which began with Sethi sampling and stretching small samples of Jaar’s music and improvising vocals over the top, a process which met with Jaar’s approval and led to a formal collaboration. The results here are ethereal, spiritual and incredibly alluring.
Sethi reimagines the ghazal – a lyrical poem traditionally invoking melancholy, rapture, longing, and metaphysical premises – through engineered rave revivalism.
‘Intiha’ illustrates what’s possible when you reconfigure centuries-old traditions into a porous and borderless present. “It felt familiar to me, that sense of adventure you have when you hear his music, like a tale that teases you and plays with your expectations as it unfolds,” says Sethi of Jaar’s work. “It resembled the leisurely improvised ghazals and qawwalis I grew up hearing in Pakistan.” Of ‘Intiha’, Jaar says: “it’s a sound that I hope can operate on multiple levels.”