If Nusrat sang in god’s voice, then the record keepers have done God’s work by releasing his revelations. The unbelievable story of how Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s unreleased work, Chain of Light, was discovered does poetic justice to the truly ‘magical’ aspect of his enchanting music. So much so that the cynic in you might question the creative liberties that have been taken in telling the audience how the record was gathering dust in a World War II warehouse where Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studio’s archive was being maintained — it sounds unreal.
How one can let something like a Nusrat record slide into oblivion is the moral equivalent of a Pakistani feeling attacked, but the offence wouldn’t hurt so much once you get to listen to the unreleased album, particularly the mind-blowing rhythmic structure of Ya Ghous Ya Meeran.
On Saturday night, a select few from Karachi had the privilege of listening to excerpts from the album and watching a brilliantly done extended trailer of Ustad, a documentary on NFAK’s life by Sayna Bashir Productions at the British Council.
The lost album
Chain of Light, as titled by Nusrat’s International Manager Rashid Ahmed Din, is a collection of previously unheard recordings, made in 1990 at Real World Studios. This was the time when the young Qawwal was at the peak of the World Music scene and the top of his game both as a vocalist and a composer. The long-forgotten record has been restored from original analogue tapes and features four tracks, including Ya Allah Ya Rehman, and the utterly magnificent Ya Ghous Ya Meeran. While the audience was treated to short pieces from the album, one could sense how Nusrat and his music never left our soundscape. The experience was similar to listening to an old recording that you feel has always been on your playlist but hasn’t.
Ya Ghous Ya Meeran was extraordinary. It was so dynamic and powerful that you could feel the Ustad in Nusrat flaunting his rhythmic mastery by tossing the composition around and leading us into multiple worlds simultaneously, like an illusionist. This is also the only recording of Ya Ghous Ya Meeran, and if this isn’t enough reason for you to pre-order the album right away, then you should have seen how awe-struck the musicians and aficionados in the gathering were — one could tell by their ecstatic gestures and expressions. By the time they realised how Nusrat was toying with their senses, the excerpt had ended.
‘Ustad’ the documentary
So much has changed in the world of Qawwali, Eastern tradition and Nusrat’s own family that it is hard to put together a documentary that sums up his life and legacy. While witnessing the slick, informative, and well-researched trailer of Ustad the documentary, I couldn’t help but think about how a few months earlier, Nusrat’s nephew and now the crowned successor, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, was in the news for a viral video that saw him thrashing his ‘Shaagird’ for losing his ‘bottle’. The episode opened several discussions around Nusrat’s legacy and how the Ustad/Shagird tradition may have grown toxic beyond measure.
Rahat features in the documentary too, at least in the scenes from Nusrat’s funeral and his sucession but it’s an important question that I am sure producers are already juggling with: how to honour our greatest without retorting to pure nostalgia? A Nusrat documentary that only looks back and doesn’t push forward would be such an injustice to our most globally accepted and creatively blessed musician ever.
In the panel discussion that followed the screening, Zakir Thaver of Salam fame, who is also a part of Ustad, clarified that they aren’t fully funded yet and are looking for as much support as possible to get the word out there. He also requested fans to share any rare footage of Nusrat with the producers. Renowned singer Tina Sani emphasised how there needs to be better archiving of Pakistani musicians, leaving us with a jarring remark, “Some of the best work recorded at PTV was erased to make space for new work.”
For now, what can be said is that Ustad is a great effort to document South Asia’s biggest musician and the most talented Qawwal ever. The producers have covered enough ground by featuring the likes of Peter Gabriel and Michale Brook in the documentary and there’s a promise of more given the investment and research.
As the Brits brace for an Oasis reunion, Chain of Light will slide into the UK cultural activities roster with similar events in Manchester on September 10 and Birmingham on September 11, then to Paris on September 13. The final pre-release will take place in London on September 19, culminating in the official album launch on September 20, 2024.
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