Pakistani American singer Arooj Aftab is rejoined by her collaborators - jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and synth player Shahzad Ismaily - on her new album 'Love In Exile', a "sort of beautiful, strange sonic landscape made from strings, keys, and breath," as Rolling Stone puts it. Guardian hears tenderness, calling the album "the sound of a trio playing in gentle harmony... Aftab, Iyer and Ismaily reveal the beauty in quietude".

Pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist and synth player Shahzad Ismaily, and vocalist Arooj Aftab have related their first collaborative track - beautiful 'To Remain/To Return' from their debut 'Love In Exile', recorded live in the studio with minimal edits. The song, as well as the collaborators' feelings about their album are quite promising. “Making music with Arooj and Shahzad is nothing less than an out-of-body experience. I’m weirdly in awe of our unhurried, mysterious creations; they seem to arrive fully formed from somewhere else" - Iyer says. "This piece holds, at its core, the delicately unfolding emotion of separation anxiety induced fury (see: love, self exile) between two people who are deeply connected. One is leaving and the other is asking them to stay. The former is saying ‘I will leave but I will also return’; in better form for the both of us” - Aftab says about the song. Ismaily adds, "We all provide the best we can. 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".

“What is heritage?. It is the culture you inherit. So if you’re moving to different societies, you’re inheriting these things that become your heritage, become what your music sounds like, become what you move around like” - Pakistan-raised Brooklyn-based musician Arooj Aftab says in a Pitchfork interview about her latest, great album 'Vulture Prince'. She compares singing in Urdu versus English - "it lives in a different place in your mouth, in your entire body. Everything changes a little bit—the intonation and inflection, the accent, the diction". She also touches the sensitive issue of her late brother - “you accept your losses as part of your life, instead of pointing at them”.

'Vulture Prince' is the third album by Pakistan-rased and Brooklyn-based Arooj Aftab, dedicated to her younger brother who died while she was making it. The album was written as an instrument of swimming out of feelings of loss and grief. Arooj Aftab's mesmerizing voice is supported here by a team of renowned musicians. It's a subtle amalgamation of classical, South Asian music, jazz, even some trance and reggae. Full of class and a class of its own...

Pakistan-born, New York-based artist Arooj Aftab is releasing her new album 'Vulture Prince' later this month, with South Asian, reggae, western indie music influences, which she explains in an NPR interview: "I sometimes feel that, even approaching my own music - what I mean is South Asian music - is like the quintessential imposter syndrome situation where it's like, you know, I haven't really studied this, and I never went back since 19. I might be appropriating it, too, you know? So I'm always kind of making sure that I'm actually inheriting the music with integrity and with some kind of depth and with some kind of respect for its history rather than using it".