Arooj Aftab has teamed up with Bonobo for 'Fire on the Water,' a new single from his upcoming album 'Distance in Static.' Built around Bonobo's understated electronic production and Aftab's Urdu vocals, the song grew from an improvised studio session and poetry by Pakistani writer Yasra Rizvi, unfolding as a meditation on desire, longing, and emotional intimacy while bringing together ambient electronics, folk textures, and South Asian musical influences.
Grammy Award-winning vocalist, composer and producer Arooj Aftab jus collaborated electronica producer and DJ Bonobo on ‘Fire on the Water’ from his upcoming album 'Distance in Static'. Releasing on July 7, the song brings together Bonobo's finely textured electronic production and Arooj Aftab's unmistakable voice, in Urdu, for one of the standout tracks from his upcoming album, 'Distance in Static', out on September 11.
Bonobo, born Simon Green, has spent decades building a sound that moves between electronic music, jazz, downtempo, chillout and live instrumentation. Aftab, whose work draws from South Asian musical traditions, jazz, folk and ambient music, brings an emotional depth that fits naturally into Green's understated arrangements. For the track, Aftab travelled from her Brooklyn base to Woodside, a secluded town known for its towering redwoods and hikes by the river, where Bonobo aka Simon Green recorded a large portion of the album at Neil Young’s legendary Broken Arrow Ranch studio.
Emerging from these Ranch sessions was the enchanting ‘Fire on the Water’, that evolved, almost accidentally, from a rough acoustic guitar loop recorded while Green was testing studio inputs one morning. Around the same time, Aftab had been working with verses by her close friend, Pakistani poet Yasra Rizvi, assembling different poems around ideas of desire and longing. Those lyrics were originally meant for another musical sketch the pair had been developing together, though the song never settled into place. “I was trying to work the words and the melody around a different idea Bonobo had but it just wasn’t flying,” recalls Aftab. After setting the unfinished idea aside and taking a break for lunch and a walk, they returned to the studio. And Green tried something else.
“I was like, WAIT... this beat is inviting something, the fire on the water will work here. So I started weaving it in, line by line, and he started playing that guitar riff. We had this astonishing, hushed excitement as we kept putting the pieces together because we could feel that we were making something very special.”Arooj Aftab
Throughout 'Fire on the Water,' plucked guitar, cello, violin and fuzzy synths weave a gossamer web around Aftab’s craveable voice — intimate and inviting; which has been described by Bonobo as the point where he could first hear the album taking shape. Over the past year, Aftab has worked across different musical styles and creative partnerships. She recently reinterpreted 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' in Urdu alongside producer Anish Kumar for Riz Ahmed's series 'BAIT', another project that brought familiar material into a new linguistic and musical context. The artist has long admired Bonobo’s music, sharing that almost everyone from her generation grew up listening to his work. Her collaboration with Bonobo comes after a lifetime of admiration and even having grown up listening to his music.
'Fire on the Water' is one of several collaborations featured on 'Distance in Static,' an album that also includes appearances from Joy Crookes, Nilüfer Yanya, Ichiko Aoba, Nicole Miglis of Hundred Waters and Aanya Martin. Alongside 'Fire on the Water', Bonobo will also release the more club-oriented single 'Drift', which has already become a favourite during his recent live sets.
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