Some of the best and most fruitful collaborations are born out of chance, and that’s absolutely the case with “Intiha,” the new album from Pakistani singer and songwriter Ali Sethi and musician and producer Nicolás Jaar. As Sethi tells it in a recent Pitchfork piece, he’d heard and enjoyed Jaar’s music for years, and then, during the height of the pandemic, he started taking snippets from “Telas,” one of the three albums Jaar released in 2020, and recording raga phrases over the snippets. Sethi sent one of these recordings to a friend who’d worked with Jaar, and then Jaar got in touch to encourage him to keep doing what he was doing. It’s always inspiring to hear about art that emerges like this—from an artist reacting to another artist’s work, turning it to new uses, creating something simply because they want to see it exist. This album feels luxurious: Sethi’s singing throughout is so impressive, he has such great command of his voice, great command of the emotion he conveys; Jaar’s rich soundcraft provides the perfect background for Sethi’s performances.
Sethi takes center stage right from the start, with the title track, which begins with slow synth developments and Sethi’s voice flickering in the background. He sings at first in a whisper, like he’s relaying a secret. But then he gets louder, more confident in what he’s saying—this is direct address, Sethi turning toward you to say what he needs to say. The flickering, ghostly Sethi joins again near the end of the track to double up the vocals, and then fades slowly away. One of the most remarkable things about this album is the way that Sethi’s singing and Jaar’s production manages to get across so much emotion to the listener—even when you don’t understand the Urdu lyrics or know the historical context of the ghazals that Sethi’s singing. The handful of ghazals I know—from folks like Ghulam Ali, Amanat Ali Khan, Farida Khanum (Sethi’s teacher, whose poem he sings on “Nazar Se”), and Mehdi Hassan Khan—sound worlds away from what Sethi is doing here. All those songs are emotional too, you can hear the longing and the romance in their voices, but Sethi’s singing here is so much more expressive and imaginative.
Both “Muddat” and “Dard” are other prominent examples of this. The first is an absolutely killer song, the kind of song you can easily imagine lighting up the soundtrack for a movie. It starts with a percussive countdown, electric piano, cymbals, more percussion, and then Sethi comes in, singing clearly and declaratively. The track really takes off around 1:16, when an even bigger beat comes in, but then it actually explodes around 2 minutes, when Jaar goes into Against All Logic mode, and the tracks coasts at that plateau for a minute until a stretch around 3 minutes when Sethi really hits it, a big moment. Everything shuffles together again for one last big stretch from 4 minutes on, and then it slowly fades into shimmering tones, and Sethi returns, whispering the lyrics as he’s walking off stage.
“Dard” is probably the best example of how Sethi’s and Jaar’s ideas work together so well, what they provide each other. The beginning of this track is so identifiably Jaar, the kind of clicking, static, synth hits that stumble into a groove. And Sethi’s vocals here, doubled or echoed maybe, sound like they’re seeking, but not desperate—maybe lost in love, but still enjoying the pleasure of the pursuit. The middle section of this song is quite spectacular too, with Sethi singing unaccompanied for a minute or so, until the curtain falls briefly, Jaar’s clicks and scribbles return, and the track proceeds serenely until its end, a sea of popping bubbles, Sethi’s quiet, graceful singing, and a droning organ. The whole album is full of moments like that, unexpected and beautiful.