By Keith Walsh
On the stunning new album The Departure, The Shadow Majlis navigate the strange, unwelcome world of grief. Just twenty five seconds into the record, a child’s voice sends warm shivers down my spine. It turns out that the voice is that of band leader Ali Jafri’s son Oisin, to whom the album is dedicated. Oisin passed away in autumn of 2022 after a fierce battle with cancer. (My interview with Ali Jafri is here.)
The first complete song after an intro, “The Way Home” finds Jafri experiencing grief with a devastatingly tender memory, over a track featuring a fusion of electronically processed drones, one by cellist Anne Bourne, and a haunting melody on the sarangi by Pankaj Mishra.
“It’s time to turn out the light/It’s time to say goodnight/It’s time to lay down your head/It’s time to go to bed/It’s time to hold bay bear/It’s time to say your prayers/It’s time to turn out the light/It’s time to say goodnight
It doesn’t have to be like this/It doesn’t have to be so unfair/I didnt know you’d take my heart/I didn’t know I’d be so scared/I didn’t know that this would be our last/I didn’t know what you were trying to say/I didn’t know that this could break like glass/I didn’t know that they would call your name.”
From “The Way Home” by The Shadow Majlis
The lovely harmonies and exotic instrumentation reflect the bittersweetness found in savoring the past while doing the necessary work of letting go. The Departure was recorded and mixed at three studios in Toronto, Canada, where Jafri and his brilliant team found the ideal setting to create their masterpiece. The third track, “Love In Flames,” with its mix of thundering drums, orchestral arrangements and lyrics about fighting a way forward with passion reflects that studio’s legacy of powerfully inspired music. Jafri’s voice is confident and strong as he fights his way back to harmony.
In our email exchange, Jafri explained the concept behind the band’s name, and the concepts that inform the album:
“I chose to blend languages in the name as I do cultures in the music as a reflection of my blended experience as a first generation Canadian. Im the only Canadian born member of my family growing up.
“Majlis means sitting room, council, gathering. I like the name because of the connotations of shadow with psychology, mysticism and the fringe, just outside the spotlight. It’s a bigger realm where potential is born from. It represents possibility, and the idea of my collaborators being a type of council messaging the world from the shadows is a premise that is fun. An outside influence that’s closer than you know. Lurking, benevolently. You need to be afraid of the dark, not always. Ha!” (My complete interview with Ali Jafri is also on Popular Culture Beat).
On the fourth track “Savage Castaway,” there’s a jungle beat and an existential longing, a desire to be seen in the midst of alienation. The flute by Soriah and pounding tom drums set a uniquely mysterious tone, while the electric sitar melody played by Jafri is elegant and strange. On The Departure, Jafri also plays guitar, bass VI, synthesizers, percussion and solfeggio pipes. Throughout the album, a mix of global instruments remind us of our intimate connection with other worlds. The sārangī is a stringed instrument with a sitar like tone, and it’s played here by Pankaj Mishra. Other instruments which add diasporic textures to the album are the kamancheh, an Iranian stringed instrument played by Kerem Koktas, and the ney, a flute with Near East origins, played by Selmanpak Ayduz.
The track “Mazdur” conveys Jafri’s grief, which while devastating, is illuminated by faith and memory, never giving itself over to total despair. Cello by Anne Bourne and tabla drum by Ravi Naimpally. “Deer In The Headlights” is an intense and strange electronic tune, again with Naimpally’s tabla, this time with strange synchronization (and apparently sampled as well.) The chanting vocals, sounding like a ritual before breaking into a soaring chorus. ”Swallowed By The Sky” finds Jafri finding a degree of comfort in a metaphorical explanation for his loss, with additional vocals by Jafri’s writing coach Sasha Singer-Wilson.
“We found a world of wonder/And a love that would never die/Swallowed by the sky/We imagined/This isn’t goodbye/You were just swallowed by the sky/We come to leave it all behind This isn’t goodbye/You were just swallowed by the sky.”
From “Swallowed By The Sky” by Shadow Majlis
“I Remember” is a questioning paean to memories of love, while “Beshno Az Ney” is a tune inspired by a poem by Sufi poet Rumi, with ney flute, and the sārangī or kamancheh, creating a mystical tone of awe and worship, with vocals again by Singer-Wilson. Title track “The Departure” carries that awe forward instrumentally, in an ethereal song with more sārangī and kamancheh, and the lovely soprano vocals of Olena Tsybulska from the Ukrainian ensemble DakhaBrakha It’s that sense of awe that pervades the album, which deals with grief while reminding us that there are gifts even in the least welcome of experiences.
The Departure was produced and mixed by David Bottrill, a three-time Grammy winner who has worked on albums by Peter Gabriel, Tool, David Sylvain, Muse, Smashing Pumpkins, and Placebo. The main band on The Departure is Ali Jafri, David Bottrill on backing vocals, electronics and synthesizers, David J (Love and Rockets, Bauhaus) on bass, and Rakesh Tewari (Jaffa Road, The Special Interest Group) on drums and percussion.
The Shadow Majlis Dot Com
The Shadow Majlis On Bandcamp
‘The Departure’ On Spotify
‘The Departure’ On Apple Music
Saintfield On Bandcamp
‘Ali Jafri’ On Bandcamp
Q&A With Ali Jafri At Popular Culture Beat
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