Some songs can only be heard at night

The night, Arooj Aftab confesses, is my biggest source of inspiration. By trial or intuition, the GRAMMY winning artist has come to understand that these still moments of cover uniquely enable healing, desire, shelter, love each essential elements of life and living, of intimate relation to one another.

Night Reign is a perfumed, public garden of renewal, peaking the senses with each composition, each turn of phrase, each modulation. Stepping away from, though never forgetting, the grief and loss that animated her GRAMMY Award-winning track Mohabbat and album Vulture Prince (2021), on which she faced what can too quickly and easily be taken away, Aftab appears here with original music and in yet another form: as bard of everyday possibility, quietude and life-altering romance.

The music - which features contributions from artists Cautious Clay, Vijay Iyer, Moor Mother, and more - holds visual context, a cinematic soundscape that brings life to the divinely ominous space we call the dark. Within the realm of darkness, Night Reign points to layers of depth that blend each song into a narrative of surrender. The majesty of this intrepid work is Aftabs voice in ample conspiracy toward a jagged world made softer promising, even by tones and tales conceived with others. I want to make music with and for everybody, Aftab confidently declares. Night Reign is that chance and its triumph. Join and be made anew.

Side A
1. Aey Nehin
2. Na Gul
3. Autumn Leaves (ft. James Francies)
4. Whiskey
5. Zameen (ft. Marc Anthony Thompson c/o Chocolate Genius Incorporated)

Side B
1. Raat Ki Rani (VINYL EXCLUSIVE VERSION)
2. Saaqi (ft. Vijay Iyer)
3. Bolo Na (ft. Moor Mother)
4. Last Night Reprise (ft. Cautious Clay, Kaki King, Maeve Gilchrist)