Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily Share New “Shadow Forces” Video

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily have shared the below new music video for their 14-minute long collaboration “Shadow Forces”—a song from the new album Love in Exile. It was directed by Karishma Dev Dube, who had this to say about the video in a statement:

I’m not sure if it was the nostalgia of the lyrics [which were sung originally by Pakistani folk singer Reshma] or Arooj’s voice or the piano that keeps repeating, but I had a very specific reaction to “Shadow Forces” the first time I heard it. Even though Arooj is doing something very different with the words and it has almost no connective tissue to how I first heard them, the song was very evocative of a memory that felt really close but was being represented in a new way. I wanted to create an extended moment of time which the viewer feels compelled to feel present in. They are not thinking about anything that has happened or anything that may happen next. I asked myself, “How can I create the feeling of being totally present but also evoke the same sadness I felt that was connected to memory?”

Hear Aftab, Iyer, and Ismaily discuss the new album and their collaborative process on the Pitchfork Review podcast.