AROOJ AFTAB, VIJAY IYER, SHAHZAD ISMAILY LOVE IN EXILE OUT NOW
WATCH THE VISUALIZER FOR “SHADOW FORCES” HERE
STREAM VISUALIZERS FOR ALL TRACKS HERE
LIVE DATES BEGIN NEXT WEEK
Credit: Ebru Yildiz, Hi-Res HERE
Praise for Love in Exile:
“An innovative jazz pianist, a Grammy-winning Urdu vocalist, and an inventive multi-instrumentalist get together for an album that sounds like nothing else out there.”
- Rolling Stone
““The song feels less like a jam session than a portal to another universe, a small miracle of telepathy occurring across nine spellbinding minutes.” (“To Remain/To Return”)
- Pitchfork
“The music is unanimous in its restraint. Iyer gradually forms rising, modal five-note patterns on piano. Ismaily leans into a drone that evolves from slow tolling to a throbbing pulse. And Aftab sings pensive, hovering phrases in Urdu. In the full nine-minute version, the music wafts up out of near-silence and sustained electronics; a three-minute excerpt gets to Aftab’s melodies, and a beat, much sooner.” (“To Remain/To Return”)
- The New York Times
“a hushed, meditative and extraordinarily beautiful studio session . . . The first track, “To Remain/To Return,” reminds me of Alice Coltrane’s devotional music from the ’80s, crossed with one of Keith Jarrett’s darker solo ECM albums. But really, there’s nothing else out there like this music, and you really need to give yourself over to it for its entire 72-minute running time and see how you feel when it’s over.”
- Stereogum
“A trio in striking harmony”
- The Guardian
“Sonically meditative… from three brilliant collaborators”
- NPR All Songs Considered
24 MARCH 2023 (TORONTO, ON) – Musicians Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily release their collaborative album, Love In Exile, today on Verve Records/Universal Music Canada. Featuring the song “Shadow Forces,” the record is accompanied by a suite of visualizers created by Anum Awan. The trio will take Love In Exile on tour starting next week, with appearances at numerous venues and festivals including Big Ears Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, and the recently announced Newport Jazz Festival.
Watch “Shadow Forces” visualizer HERE
Love In Exile arose from a live performance between the three musicians in 2018, where each of them felt an almost otherworldly synchronicity in their talents, an experience Shahzad Ismaily described as “alchemic.” After half a decade of honing and refining this magic from that fateful show, the three musicians proudly share it with the world.
“Sometimes things just get left on the shelf, really beautiful things, because you don’t know where they fit,” Arooj Aftab shares of the process. “And so I’m glad we found where to fit the album, and I’m glad it’s coming out now.”
Download Press Materials HERE
Love In Exile asks you to step inside its sense of time, to stretch out alongside these delightful and unhurriedly unfolding songs. Profound impact is achieved with minimal instrumentation: Vijay Iyer on pianos and electronics, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog synth, and Arooj Aftab’s exquisite Urdu vocals. Subtle musical interrelationships build into moments of deeply felt drama. Shimmering keyboard melodies and stirring vocals, earthy basslines, and hypnotic drones: together they create an album of stunning gravitas and beauty. Love In Exile was recorded live in a New York City studio with minimal editing, and each listen reveals distinct aspects of this soundworld, sure as it will activate new feelings inside you.
“We all provide the best we can,” says Shahzad Ismaily. “In my case it's euclidean rhythms, crystals to hold the oceanic beauty of Vijay's keys and the silent raven of Arooj's voice. We grow to the company that we keep; I am both fortunate and grateful."
Genre categories come after the fact. This album is startlingly present and emotionally open. Many listeners will find it easier to remember how each song made them feel and what each song did to their sense of attention rather than specific melodies. This is music as a meeting ground and a way of being alive to the world. All the intimacies and deep trust that we understand by the word love combine with all the strangeness and adaptability of exile. The outsiders stay open. Even for the performers themselves, the music elicits “nothing less than an out-of-body experience.”
Stream the complete collection of visualizers HERE
“What I experience when I listen back to this album is a reordering of my sense of time, my sense of how time moves,” Vijay Iyer explains. “It moves with this mysterious grace that you can’t put your finger on. Being in that world gives listeners access to feelings they might not otherwise allow themselves to have.”
The trio’s work is graceful in the common sense: elegance and emotion accompany each movement here. Yet it also manifests the deeper, spiritual sense of grace: a beauty that is generous, free, and unexpected, tapped into a higher power, which it translates and extends.
By creating in real time, without any prior preparations, the three musicians make a collective moment for both themselves and the audience. Remembering their first show, Aftab says, “Vijay and Shahzad were so locked into each other, and it was unclear whether they were doing what I was doing or I was doing what they were doing. We were like a school of fish.” Sunlight dappled through deep water, fluid motions that dissolve individual boundaries and amplify communal energy. Ismaily calls it “a relaxing toward what is.” Love In Exile is the power of music, how it moves us and invites us to love.
(Trio performing Love in Exile)
Mar 31 — Knoxville, TN — Big Ears Music Festival
Apr 14 — North Bethesda, MD — Strathmore — The Music Center
Apr 28 — Burlington, VT — UVM Recital Hall
May 7 — Krems an der Donau, AT — Donau Festival, Minoritenkirche
May 9 — Brussels, BE — Les Nuits Botanique Festival, Notre Dame Church
May 11 — Luxembourg, LU — Neimënster
May 13 — Berlin, DE — XJAZZ! Festival, Emmauskirche
May 24 — LUBLIN, PL — CODES Festival
May 25 — Hamburg, DE — Elbphilharmonie
May 29 — Zurich, CH — Moods
May 30 — Utrecht, NL — Tivoli Vredenburg
June 1 — Hay-on-Wye, UK — Hay Festival
June 2 — London, UK — Barbican Centre
June 26 — Vancouver, BC — Vancouver Jazz Festival
June 28 — Ottawa, ON — Ottawa Jazz Festival
June 29 — Montreal, QC — Montreal Jazz Festival
July 27 — North Adams, MA — Bang on a Can’s: LOUD WEEKEND 2023 at Mass MoCA
Jul 29 — Katonah, NY — Caramoor Center for the Arts
Aug 5 — Newport, RI — Newport Jazz Festival
Sep 14 — New York, NY — Venue TBA
Sep 19 — San Diego, CA — Epstein Family Amphitheatre
Sep 20 — Los Angeles, CA — Venue TBA
Sep 21 — San Francisco, CA — Great American Music Hall
Sept. 22 — Beaverton, OR — Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Sept. 24 — Seattle, WA — Neptune Theatre
Sep 28 — Tempe, AZ — Tempe Center for the Arts
Sept 29 — Austin, TX — Venue TBA
Sept 30 — Denver, CO — Venue TBA
Oct 4 — Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art
Oct 5 — Princeton, NJ – Venue TBA
Oct 7 — Blacksburg, VA — Venue TBA
Oct 8 — Boston, MA — Institute of Contemporary Art
Oct 10 — Minneapolis, MN — The Cedar
Oct 11 — Chicago, IL — Harris Theater for Music and Dance
Oct 12 — Iowa City, IA — Infinite Dream Festival
*Additional trio performances through October 2023 to be announced*
About the Trio
Backstage after their 2018 debut show in their adopted hometown of New York City, Shahzad Ismaily asked Arooj Aftab and Vijay Iyer to huddle together and reflect on what had just occurred. “We felt it from the first moment,” remembers Iyer. “We were mystified and almost silent and said: I don’t know what just happened. But we should do that again.” They hadn’t prepared material in advance; the potent chemistry surprised even these seasoned collaborators. A shared focus on collective real-time creation allowed them to weave the bass, piano, and vocals into a breathtakingly unified sound. This was music in the moment. Words couldn’t define it, but the audience felt it, and joined the emotional journey. Staying open to spontaneous co-creation became the band’s defining approach in the half dozen shows they played before recording their debut album.
Individually, their accolades are substantial – vocalist and composer Arooj Aftab, winner of the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Global Music Performance, wows audiences worldwide with her mesmerizing live shows; MacArthur genius and Grammy nominee Vijay Iyer is one of today’s most influential pianists; multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily’s sensitivity and technical acumen has made him a legend among musicians like Yoko Ono, for whom he was a session player. Yet the marvel here is how ego disappears as the three players merge to create a singular, gorgeous sound.
Love in Exile available in all formats HERE
Credit: Curry Hackett, Hi-Res HERE
Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily / Love in Exile (Verve)
Tracklist
CD Tracklist
- To Remain/To Return (9:19)
- Haseen Thi (12:09)
- Shadow Forces (14:11)
- Sajni (8:15)
- Eyes of the Endless (14:50)
- Sharabi (13:42)
Vinyl tracklist:
Disc 1, Side A
- To Remain/To Return (9:19)
- Haseen Thi (12:09)
Disc 1, Side B
- Shadow Forces (14:11)
- Sajni (8:15)
Disc 2, Side A
- Eyes of the Endless (14:50)
Disc 2, Side B
- Sharabi (13:42)
Digital tracklist:
- To Remain/To Return (9:19)
- Haseen Thi (12:09)
- Shadow Forces (14:11)
- Sajni (8:15)
- Eyes of the Endless (14:50)
- Sharabi (13:42)
- To Remain/To Return (Excerpt) (3:19)
LOVE IN EXILE ONLINE: