Sheherazaad Launches Ethereal ‘Dhund Lo Mujhe’ Single From ‘Qasr’ Mini-Album

There’s an air of enchantment as Indo-American artist Sheherazaad beckons on her new song “Dhund Lo Mujhe,” the second single off her just-announced mini-album Qasr. The five-track album, produced by Pakistani artist Arooj Aftab, arrives on March 1st via U.K. independentErased Tapes.

Suitably atmospheric and featuring strings and percussion by Runar Blesvik and Egyptian violinist Basma Edrees, “Dhund Lo Mujhe” is the follow-up to the Brooklyn/India-based artist’s debut on Erased Tapes with “Mashoor” in October last year. In 2020, Sheherazaad released her previous project Khwaabistan which was what caught Aftab – a Grammy winner for her song “Mohabbat” in 2022 and Grammy nominee for “Udhero Na” in 2023, plus the collaborative Love In Exile this year.

Without a doubt, both “Mashoor” and “Dhund Lo Mujhe” bear the atmospheric, hypnotic quality that Aftab has brought to her own music, but Sheherazaad heightens it with her honed ambient and folk-pop informed vocal treatment in Hindi and Urdu. The artist says it was Aftab who had recommended approaching Erased Tapes, which has previously released work by composers such as Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds. Describing the shift from working in “unglamorous isolation” as an independent artist, Sheherazaad says, “The label world was foreign to me, where I couldn’t imagine major industrial support for experimentalism and genre-defiance. So I was floored to discover how obviously Erased Tapes prized these qualities which I also cherished, and how they are ushering in a new era of music innovation.”

While these songs and Qasr may be the first time a wider audience is hearing Sheherazaad – especially because she’s now got an acclaimed label’s backing – the artist does acknowledge her efforts with Khwaabistan. “I had to make Khwaabistan in order to make Qasr – it’s kind of like shedding of the skin,” she says. There’s a palpable excitement with launching Qasr in March, with Sheherazaad terming it as “the beginning of an epic tale” that also subverts expectations and is an embodiment of her deep lineage, growing up in an Indian music-inclined household but also trained in jazz vocals and later, Hindustani classical (by her guru Madhuvanti Bhide).

 Sheherazaad introduced Qasr with the kind of tension and drama interplay that one hears in “Mashoor,” which came with a hair-raising music video directed by filmmaker Julia Zanin De Paula. There’s a faceless, black figure throughout and understandably, the artist would rather hear our interpretations of the narrative rather than dive into anything concrete.

The song also features classical guitar from Indian-origin Ria Modak and percussion from Lebanon-origin artist Gilbert Mansour. Sheherazaad again credits Aftab for introducing her to Modak. “Throughout the process of working with Arooj, I felt so seen and held, knowing that all the iterations would pass through her shared cultural understanding and raw brilliance. To have such a radical, gender-expansive presence like hers guiding the project basically just aligned the project to itself, to its own innate backbone and messaging.”

To those familiar with Hindi and Urdu, there’s a certain accessibility yet depth in the way Sheherazaad has written and delivered the lyrics to songs like “Mashoor” and “Dhund Lo Mujhe.” She talks about how she often has “diasporic people in mind while composing,” specifically their idea of a mother tongue or language. While there has often been ridicule, gate-keeping and shame attached to “broken accents,” Sheherazaad says she finds “purity and story in this broken way of speaking.” She adds, “The blasphemy of it is so musical to me, so ultra-contemporary and yet very folk.”

She describes feelings of responsibility and pride if she had to bring her music to India, but does add that she would also feel “fairly shy and dazzled” by the prospect of performing here. Sheherazaad – true to her One Thousand and One Nights-inspired name that plays on “free” and “city” – suggests that her music is nomadic in nature and would never have a single “home.” She adds, “Maybe the music will resist the so-called motherland and vice-versa. Or it’ll be a glorious homecoming. Still, to venture back to the subcontinent to perform Qasr would certainly feel like an exquisite expression of nature’s many cycles.”

Listen to “Dhund Lo Mujhe” below. Pre-order ‘Qasr’ here.