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10/10 Love in Exile featuring Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily
at Cedar Cultural Center
Tour Dates
Oct 11 — Chicago, IL — Harris Theater for Music and Dance
Oct 12 — Iowa City, IA — Infinite Dream Festival Oct 17 — Athens, GA — University of GA Read More
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It was a concert not like any other. After all, Love in Exile is touring to support their self-titled debut album, but did not play the songs from it for the songs are more like templates. So, the album released by Verve in March was for the moment. Tuesday night at The Cedar Cultural Center had a setlist all its own.
The crowd for the sold-out show was seated with an attentiveness usually reserved for church services. The venue was dim, yet warmly lit, creating a peaceful, solemn atmosphere. And it was in the quiet that Shahzad Ismaily picked up his electric bass and led the trio into the first song.
If there was one occurring theme throughout the evening it was the quietness of the music, moments where none of the musicians were playing or singing, but instead, listening.
Vijay Iyer told NPR that listening to his fellow musicians is the most important part of being in this trio. To which Arooj Aftab chimed in: "When I'm not singing, I'm usually drinking wine ... " which, she said as a joke, but let it be noted that she did have a glass of wine available when she stepped back from the mic.
Love in Exile developed as an experiment through improvised, live shows. The best way to explain their sound is to see Ismaily on the moog & bass laying down the foundation, Iyer on the piano and synthesizer providing texture and Aftab’s voice ebbing and flowing like a breeze.
Aftab said the tour so far has been “Great!” She said it almost as a question for they are on the vanguard and have run into questions where the brown people in the audience wonder why they don’t play brown music and the white people in the audience wonder why they don’t play more jazz.
What everyone should appreciate is these participants are accomplished musicians, and like all great musicians, they are constantly looking to form something new, which they have done, receiving Pitchfork’s Best New Music stamp of approval and Rolling Stone describing their music “…akin to visiting some sort of beautiful, strange sonic landscape made from strings, keys, and breath.”
I honestly don’t know how to describe it. I can tell you that I heard echoes of Herbie Hancock in the later years. I heard John Coltrane’s coda from Love Supreme. I heard the folk traditions of Iyer’s Hindi and Aftab and Ismaily’s Pakistani traditions. But what I mostly heard was something otherworldly and it was the silence in between the music that drew me in.
Love in Exile at Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (10 October 2023) |
| dave ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
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