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Noor in Imaani Magazine · Dec 27, 09:48 AM

Over in the UK, the just about to be launched Imaani, a glossy style magazine aimed at the burgeoning young British Muslim population, will run an interview, as well as review, in the launch issue:

IMAANI interview
1. What have you learnt about yourself in making NOOR and how has that influenced your music?

Simply put, I’ve confirmed that I want to work in a deep way. That what’s important to me is doing work that is somehow ‘meaningful’ or ‘serious’ in a psychological or spiritual way. I get bored doing the ‘fun’ work, you know, music that’s pure pop or club oriented. I guess I need to do this work, and can only hope that this somehow translates as interesting, communicative or even pleasurable music for others.

2. Have you received any feedback on NOOR from the family of Noor Inayat Khan. If so, how do you feel about it?

Yes I have. All I have spoken with have been supportive of my doing this work, and seemingly touched by the music. I appreciate their willingness, in that I am really poking around inside a private grief with this music. None the less, I think there is something universal for us all in the story

3. Have you had any problems in promoting NOOR?

Only the usual hurdles that any independent artist has, in a world inundated with music from all sources.

4 What difficulties, if any, did you face whilst making NOOR?

I enjoy creating music, and in that sense the making of the recording wasn’t difficult at all. I was using new (to me) technology, so I sometimes got stymied by, or exasperated with, technical issues. Eventually, as time goes on any creative project where one spends a lot of time alone gets to be, well, ‘lonely’, and potentially burdensome. You feel a lot of responsibility.

On a deeper level, exhuming this music – I use the term deliberately as I did feel that I was mining some core of information within – was sometimes painful. I’d be awake with ideas, or lost in my imagination in some dark cell – empathy can be difficult.

5. NOOR was clearly a different project from what you have worked upon in the past. It contains a lot of religious references. Did you think this would have put a damper on the work and did you try to tone this down at any point?

Not at all. Earlier work of mine has hinted in a veiled or metaphorical manner at my spiritual and religious feeling; with Noor I found an ideal vehicle to be more explicit, without being preachy. Of course, some experiences will always remain personal, and there are layers of meaning, but within each individual is some core that is common to all human beings. That’s what drew me to Noor, and perhaps can be recognised in this music.

6. Do you think people would have been more interested in Noor Inayat Khan’s story if you had not added the notes to the songs in the 8 page booklet that accompanies the album?

Although the music can stand alone I felt some explication for the listener was helpful, hence the notes. My hope is that the notes will cause people to investigate Noor’s, and also touch on their own, feelings about faith and this earthly life.

7. Why have you used such a variety of different instruments/sounds in NOOR?

Instinctively I used instruments and sounds that gave me pleasure to play and listen to, that felt right for the project. I did want to sonically reference Islam, or the Islamic world, and I didn’t want to be too deliberately Indian. Fundamentally, these are the instruments and arrangements that, hopefully, best express my soul.

8. NOOR contains an excellent blend of the lyrics and the music? How does this relate to the commentary you have offered in your notes?

The notes give further information or addenda to the main lyrics, describing the state of the composer at the time of recording, or explanations as to the particular context or phase of Noor’s life being addressed.

9. What do you feel about the coalition of Sufi music with western sounds that you have tried to make in NOOR. In other words, what do you think this effect is trying to say musically?

I hope that my use of ‘Sufi’ type sounds is not just a gloss or cosmetic—that it signifies a certain devotional feeling. Having said that, I should stress that what I played arose from within myself, in the context of my casual listening to, rather than studying of, music played by Sufis from all over the world.

One more point about this question: Indian, Arabic, Celtic, West African etc musical modalities all really have a lot in common with each other… modern technological sounds and recording methods are just new vehicles to be harnessed… I like to create music that is rooted in the past but at the same time is firmly modern, with, God willing, some kind of inner feeling that translates to the listener…

10. What message, in short, do you wish to give to your listeners through NOOR?

Message is a difficult word. I saw this as an opportunity to explore and articulate some of my own ideas about life and death and faith and surrender, and if this music is both evocative and pleasurable for others, then I have achieved something. Possibly Noor saw that ‘reality’ is something beyond and after this life, but that only by living as we should in this world can we arrive at that true reality.

The review itself, authored by Rehan Qayoom can be previewed here.

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