Badar Ali Khan – The Mixes – Review

Badar Ali Khan

The Mixes (Baba)
by Scott Hefflon

Who knew the keening, warbling howl of spiritual music could be so hip and danceable? I don’t mean dancing like a loin-clothed savage in some insulting movie meant to remind Americans how vastly superior we are to all but God, I mean dancing as in, like, trendy clubs and stuff. For those who’ve seen Natural Born Killers (and most of you should’ve seen it many times and memorized selections), it was Badar Ali Khan‘s uncle, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (the Pavarotti of Pakistan), who caused much controversy by having his music played during overlapping scenes of graphic American street violence. He collaborated with Peter Gabriel on The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack as well as releasing albums on Gabriel’s Real World label, and collaborated with Eddie Vedder for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. Badar continues in his family’s tradition of bringing the Sufi devotional music called qawwai to the West, and The Mixes shows his versatility is not to be overshadowed by his uncle’s great achievements. With a rich, sometimes booming voice, Badar incorporates “old world” sounds and rhythms, along with electronic instruments and beats found in dance clubs. It’s interesting to hear what some might call jungle performed by a row (I’m guessing here) of robe-wearing devotees whaling away on tube-shaped drums. While hippies have long been into the altered states achievable with simple, open music (and drugs, preferably), I doubt they ever envisioned shaking their groove things to the sweating beats Badar Ali Khan is capable of producing. But there’s plenty of soft-spokenness going on here as well. The Mixes offers three mixes of the wonderfully positive “Calandar,” the full-throttle “Mola,” and the spatial “Ali Mola” and “Tabla Rasa (Reprise),” the latter of which clocks in at just over 11 minutes.
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