BELLA950CD
Release Date: 27 September 2019
Afghan singer Elaha Soroor and award-winning music/producer duo Kefaya (Al MacSween & Giuliano Modarelli) have joined forces for a mighty and mesmerising new album, Songs Of Our Mothers; a fresh, vibrant take on Afghan folk music filtered through myriad forms, from spiritual jazz and dub to Indian classical music and electronica. The album will be released 27th September via Bella Union and is available to preorder here. Today, they share the second single to be taken from the album, titled ‘Charsi’. According to the collective “Charsi is typical of northern Afghan music, a style made famous by folk musician Mir Maftoon. A charsi is a weed smoker or ‘pot-head’. Women across the world are shamed or prevented from being able to drink, smoke and party. In this song, the woman invites the macho guy to calm down, have fun and have come together as equals.”
Songs Of Our Mothers is a collection of folk songs traditionally performed by Afghan women, drawing on Elaha’s own experience of fleeing Afghanistan and the struggle faced by many other female artists. The US and Western-backed regimes that came to dominate Afghanistan in the latter part of the 20th century created a climate of heightened patriarchal oppression and persecution of women.
These songs tell stories of joy, pain and resilience, passed from mother to daughter in times of hardship and oppression whilst also celebrating femininity, sensuality and the spirit of resistance. As Elaha says, this album is for “those women around the world whose image has been erased, and whose voice has been forbidden.”