Sufi Spirit

At first glance, Pakistani devotional music (qawali) and rock and roll couldn't seem stranger bedfellows. Yet as Sufi Spirit elects, the two traditions share a deep honesty that marries sublime.

The band's drummer Stephan Grabowski attributes this to the 'raw guts' at the heart of both music's. Citing early Johnny Cash's gruesome laments and darkened ballads, Grabowski draws parallel with qawali music's blazingly honest love songs to the divine.

There is too a transcendental urge shared in both; line up thrashing rock and roll guitar and heavy drums with qawali's impassioned vocal improvisation, driving percussion and rising handclaps and you find two genres' indubitably united in search of ecstasy.

This album is beautifully produced by the legendary skills of Mark Howard, a previous collaborator with a roll call of rock gods (Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams, the list continues…).

Rocqawali's vocalist Ejaz Sher Ali hails from truly legendary stock, son of Ustad Sher Ali – one of the biggest household names in Pakistani qawali since Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Alongside Ejaz, Danish-Iranian Tin Soheili and Danish-Pakistani Jonas Stampe lay a solid guitar foundation, teasing and disrupting it with anarchic spirit as they go.

Stephan Grabowski brings his knowledge of Western, Indian, and Ethiopian grooves to the rhythm section, whilst renowned bassist Thomas Risell plugs the lower-end thick and heavy.