British Pakistani DJ and multi-hyphenate musician Nabihah Iqbal created her sophomore album DREAMER in the wake of tragedy. Having suffered a number of set-backs, the long worked on and nurtured original follow up to 2017’s Weighing of the Heart was stolen after her studio was burgled. Another personal tragedy would see Iqbal having to leave almost immediately for Pakistan, a trip which in hindsight, she admits was a “blessing in disguise.” The distance from the immediate trauma of the burglary, and the homecoming of being in Pakistan, would inform Iqbal’s approach to what would eventually become DREAMER. Starting to construct the skeleton of DREAMER with nothing more than acoustic guitar and harmonium, this is an album that sees Iqbal focus her gaze resolutely inwards.
Sunflower, the latest single from the album, shares some DNA with songs like Zone 1 to 6000 from her debut. It’s in Iqbal’s spoken word, the hazy lo-fi wash that characterises the looped drone synths and guitar plucks on this song. But then the subtle 4-4 pulse that thuds beneath Sunflower suddenly erupts into a symphony of gated percussive flourishes, taking it from moody indie beat poem to 80’s synthpop banger. Like Iqbal’s sprawling DJ sets – and Iqbal herself for that matter – Dreamer promises to be a more stylistically diverse and generefluid body of work than her debut. Sunflower shows that while this is indeed true, the intimacy and sense of quiet melancholy that has become Iqbal’s distinctive masterstroke remains.
Watch the music video for Sunflower, directed by Luh’ra, below. Pre-order DREAMER here.
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