Arooj Aftab Owns the Night

The Grammy Award-winning artist, fresh off a Glastonbury set, speaks to GQ about her new album, Night Reign, from the ideas that led to its conception to its genre-defying collabs with Elvis Costello, Kaki King and more.

- BHANUJ KAPPAL

A ROOJ AFTAB HAS always found refuge in the night. It's her safe space, where she retreats from the harsh spotlight of the day to collect her thoughts and search for inspiration. But over the past three years-largely spent on the road, touring behind her breakout 2021 album Vulture Prince-the Brooklyn-via-Lahore musician's relationship with the moonlit hours has deepened, transformed into something more meaningful.

It's fitting then that much of her new album Night Reign-a celebration of the night's mystical, sensual and healing powers-was written in the twilight hours, in hotel rooms, on aeroplanes and in moments of jet-lagged clarity while on the road.

"You can hear how the night became my friend," says the 39-year-old, speaking over Zoom from the UK, where she's just kicked off a six-month tour of Europe and the US with a triumphant late-afternoon set at the Glastonbury festival. Aftab speaks of her craft with the erudition and seriousness of a scholar, but she's not one to take herself too seriously. There's a dry wit that lurks just under the surface, showing itself in the occasional unguarded moment.

"It's playful, a place of resting and thinking, and of meeting exciting people. There's a flirtation there; it's very alive."

Her first album on a major label-VerveNight Reign thrums with the hazy, feverish energy of the early hours, when the breeze carries with it the scents of romance and mystique, and anything seems possible. Guitar, harp, synthesizers and upright bass blend together to create moody, shapeshifting soundscapes that move between the monochromatic clarity of rain-swept evenings and the sombre gloom of foggy winter nights.