Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Qawwal Party Shahen-Shah LP 1989 Qawwali 1st US Pressing

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Qawwal Party Shahen-Shah LP 1989 Qawwali 1st US Pressing  Archival Sleeve
This is the real deal no electronic beats or samples. The vocals just take you away Fantastic recomended 
'Qawwali' means literally 'utterance' and the Qawwal is the mouthpiece of Divine Power: 'We do not sing, we are made to sing'. This is the devotional music of the Sufis - the mystical sect of Islam, intended to elevate the spirit and bring both performer and listener closer to God.

Recorded and Mixed: Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire, U.K. March 1988.  With liner notes by Peter Gabriel on inner sleeve

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party, also known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Qawwali Party, was a Pakistani qawwali musical group, led by singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The group is credited with popularizing the genre of Sufi devotional music outside South Asia. Under the core lineup of Nusrat, the group earned international recognition, performing in major cultural venues and collaborating with artists from various musical traditions. They introduced various musical techniques, such as fusion with traditional qawwali, which contributed to the evolution of the genre. Active during the 20th century, their contributions to world music is recognised one of the prominent contributions in the history of Sufi music. The core lineup of the group comprised Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, Dildar Hussain, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Nusrat himself.

This 1988 recording helped to launch Peter Gabriel's Real World label. It also introduced Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to the non-Pakistani world, presenting him as a kind of world music rock star. Nusrat and his nine-man "party" perform their trademark qawwali here without alterations for the Western market. They sing in Urdu, using religious and romantic texts drawn from the poetry of Sufiism, the mystical sect of Islam. And yet, all the elements that would make Nusrat a world pop sensation are here, above all his enormous voice, husky and trenchant, powerful as a hurricane, severe and foreboding on the darkest tracks, but always bursting with the ecstatic joy of revelation, as on the classic, "Shamas-Ud-Doha, Badar-Ud-Doha." The relentless hand clapping and tabla drum accompaniment convey an aggressive tranciness that combines the contemplative serenity of Indian classical music with the headbanging frenzy of punk rock. Droning harmonium melodies introduce each of these six, ten-minute-plus tracks, and then wind through the escalating vocal fireworks. Singers repeat lines with building intensity, each repetition squeezing more emotional juice from the words. Nusrat's scat-like improvisations are always a high point, often leading to swelling unison chant melodies sung by the entire party. This release effectively rallied a host of samplers, re-mixers, and film scorers who would keep Nusrat busy for the remaining decade of his life. But in retrospect, nothing they created surpasses this, Nusrat's first session at Real World. "Shahen Shah" means the "brightest star," and though qawwali music now has other international stars, Nusrat still merits his title.