People's Colony No. 1 (2001)
10 tracks, 65 minutes
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I’ve always seen this album as sort of the younger sibling of the collaborations between Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook. Those releases weren’t too much earlier than this one – Mustt Mustt was from 1990, Night Song from 1996 – but they really set the stage for just what could be achieved in bringing sacred Sufi qawwali music from South Asia into the realm of world dubtronica. Together, Temple of Sound and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali took to that stage and made it their own.
With the pedigree on display, this was always going to be an impressive album. Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali is headed by the brothers Rizwan and Muazzam Mujahid Ali Khan, nephews of Nusrat and heirs to his impressive legacy; Temple of Sound are Neil Sparkes and Count Dubulah, producers and multi-insturmentalists both, then fresh from their departure from Transglobal Underground, of which they were co-founders.
The Khan/Brook collaborations yielded indisputably genius results, but focused more on the ambient and ethereal side of electronica with more of a chill-out vibe than necessarily one for the dance floor. This album takes a different tack. This one is darker and feistier, dancier and dubbier. The programmed drums and synths pump things up to trance levels, with the tabla cycles and harmonium vamps always crucial in the mix. The soaring and ecstatic wailing from the massed voices of the qawwali party is key to the whole thing, too. The mood of the pieces is dictated by the shape of the qawwali, and the dubwise beats and bass are its servants. The album still has its more meditative moments that provide pools of cool among the fever, which slowly build back up into the most intense sections.
The idea at the core of People's Colony No. 1 was that it should be ‘21st century qawwali’ and these ebbs and flows reflect that. I would also go further and say that this is ‘international qawwali.’ Qawwali itself was always a fusion, mixing poetic and musical forms from India across to Persia, and occupying the space between classical and folk music; with Temple of Sound, Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali have kept the emotional resonances and spiritual impact of the original form while turning it into something completely different. It is clear and audible in the music that this was a real collaboration – Sparkes, Dubulah and the two Khans always there together, creating and consulting with each other all along the way.
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