Fleur d'Exil
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SHAMS
Songs and stories from Afghanistan
In the family of Afghan and Indian music, we are more familiar with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a semi-traditional and religious style. This is due to the fact that Qawalis are songs that praise God, the prophet Mohammad or the leaders of Sufism. The ghazal falls into the same category, but it uses profane poems or seemingly frivolous prose, as previously explained.
In the Qawali, the melodic structure consists of a more or less complex "raag ", and the singer uses vocal and improvisational techniques in the traditional style. He successively combines vocals with the musical interludes, where the instruments may express themselves more freely.
Since roughly a century, the ghazal has been developed in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with very important singers like: Ustad Qassem, Talat Mahmoud, Mehdi Hassan, Gholam Ali, Jagjit Singh, Farida Khanom, Parwine Soltana and many others. Their flexibility and artistic talent leave room for innovation. They continue to marry Western instruments with the traditional sounds of their culture of origin, to speak about the universal and inexhaustible topic of love.
This synthesis of the enchantingly beautiful Indian music and the Persian love poems is very appreciated in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Accompanied by their instruments, the group SHAMS reveals to us the sobriety and at the same time the interior richness of the Orient through the magic of their ancestral music.
