"muskrat"

["CHRIS SMITH @ IU School of Music ONE WORLD" <SMITHCJ@ucs.indiana.edu>]

Fionna (and anyone else interested in the Pakistani music on which Peter
Gabriel participated):
The singer you heard is a man named Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He is a Qawwali
singer from Pakistan. Qawwali (a term which describes both the music style,
the musical ensemble, and the lead singer, as in "a Qawwali") is Chishti
Sufi music for worship. It is intensely popular in Pakistan and North India;
Nusrat is perhaps the most highly-regarded and certainly the best-known
Qawwali in the west. Several of his albums (including both traditional and
syncretic repertoire) appear on Gabriel's RealWorld label. The style combines
elements of Turkish music (scales and rhythmic modes) and North Indian/Hindu-
stani vocal styles. Nusrat is an extraordinary virtuoso vocalist. The texts of
the songs are usually full of love metaphors (erotic love and love of the 
Divinity are often conflated in Sufism); often they are recitations of the 
names of Sufi saints. The intent of the music as it is performed in Pakistan
and India is to invoke religious ecstasy, and IMHO even we deprived Westerners
can hear this aspect. Check out also the Sabri brothers, also on RealWorld,
and Nusrat's albums on Shanachie.
Obligatory Kate content: for an interesting extension of the Brit/Sufi connec-
tion, look again at the video for "Love and Anger." It is full of visual and
textual references to Catholic, Wiccan, Tarot and Sufi symbols.
Anyone interested in more on these musics, feel free to email me.
Regards, Chris Smith