Ali Noor’s upcoming album to explore his ‘crazy’ state of mind

The album which is titled 'Pagal' is inspired by the artist's personal journey

KARACHI:

Earlier this month, renowned musician Ali Noor made a comeback on the scene as he dropped a new song called Banjo. The title serves only as a clever wordplay on a colloquial but crass term, with the track itself being about hurdles in the creative process as opposed to being an ode to the revered string instrument.

“This is the first track of my upcoming solo album Pagal. It’s about the frustration artists goes through when they are going through a creative block,” Ali Noor told The Express Tribune. The chorus has Ali repeating the line ‘Naya Gana bana’ (make a new song), with the narrative of the music video having the singer being coaxed by those around him on the same lines.

“The phrase Naya Gana (new song), isn’t referring to something with a new set of lyrics and music. It’s pointing to something that connects with people in a different fashion. The song not only sees the artist frustrated with him or herself but also with those around.  In the sense that there is a lack of engaging and unique ideas that motivate us,” he said.

Keeping the same upbeat spirit as those of high energy numbers by Noori, Banjo differs in the sense that just like his solo album, the song also deals with personal stuff.  “Noori’s music was very message-driven. This album on the other hand is very personal. It deals with personal stories. The name Pagal was decided since the album represents my state of mind. I am a pretty crazy human being,” he said.

Elaborating further, the artist talked about how his own state of mind, post-Noori, is explored in the album. “Ideally a series of work at a particular point in a person’s life should represent sincerity. This album represents a state of mind. There’s a lot of experiences I’ve been having post-Noori. All the things have changed me as a person. The ups and downs I went through,” he said.

On the musical side of things, according to Ali, this album will have more electronic elements something that wasn’t much explored in Noori’s work. “There’s a mix and match between the core rock energy I have juxtaposed with a lot of sonic departures from what Noori does,” he said.

Adding further, Ali discussed how the plan was to initially introduce the songs in a live set-up. “I had a very clear cut position that I didn’t want to take a song and market it. I wanted it to become a part of people’s hearts and minds. The way to do that was through performing them live without anyone having any familiarity with them. It was to be an experiment on how people respond to something brand new in real-time. After COVID 19 the whole plan backfired. Then we just decided to record them," he said.

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