Khedmat Be Khalq

Iconoclastic Afghan-American street music project Naujawanan Baidar makes its long anticipated return with Khedmat Be Khalq, its third album and first new release in three years.

Originally planned as a "studio debut" in the classic sense, a veritable avalanche of setbacks tangled and delayed the recording process over a span of several years as compounded tragedies - both international and personal - disrupted the project's intended transition from simply being a ramshackle demo/home-recording outlet for founder N.R. Safi (The Myrrors, et al) into a properly working band.

At the end of the day the process of assembling what would eventually become Khedmat Be Khalq became a lot like that of the previous two releases: gnarled and sun-baked tracks cut up and collated into a blown out collage of sound. If there is any obvious difference this time around it is perhaps to be found in the increased focus of the material. Whereas the group's previous two projects ran the gamut from sparse acoustic improvisations to tape-loop-inspired noise, Khedmat Be Khalq presents a more unified hybrid of Afghan folks styles and electric energy, further exploring Safi's "maximalist minimalism" approach.