Pakistan’s leading music group, Strings, featuring founding members Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia as well as musicians Aahad Nayani (drums), Haider Ali (keyboards), Adeel Ali (guitars) and Bradley D’Souza (bass) are looking to end the run of 30 (Tees) on a beautiful note.
They plan to do so with ‘Raat Shabnami’, their eighth and final track from their sixth studio album. Think about it for a second – how many music groups besides Junoon have made six albums and are still as relevant to music as they were when they started out? Junoon is also simply reuniting and doing shows. They broke up years ago. Thus, you will be hard pressed to find a single name.
Coming back to ‘Raat Shabnami’ that has been penned by playwright Anwar Maqsood, the music video for the song, directed by Yasir Jaswal, who also directed ‘Sajni’ from 30 (Tees) is futuristic (going by the posters) and it will be made available on all leading music platforms this week.
After announcing their departure from Coke Studio as producers after a successful four year run, as part of celebrating their 30 year anniversary as a band, Strings announced that they would release a new album.
Though the claim of releasing a full length album is made by artists often, Strings stuck by their word and released a total of seven singles, each backed by its own music video. ‘Raat Shabnami’ will be the eighth number.
For 30 (Tees), the band came out of its comfort zone with Bilal Maqsood taking charge of arranging the songs and producing them as a band sans outside interference.
The singles came with music videos by the likes of Yasir Jaswal, Jami and Kamal Khan among others.
Speaking to Instep during one conversation, Bilal Maqsood stated that “after 30 comes 31” which means the band is far away from stopping at their sixth album.
Perhaps the best news is – apart from releasing a new single and its music video this week – Strings have also announced a blast from the past.
They wrote on their Instagram, “Happy to announce our album ‘Strings Thirty’ is also being distributed on a limited run of audio cassettes.”
They’ve unveiled the cover of the cassette as well as the poster for ‘Raat Shabnami’ and both work in their favour in more ways than one.
Here is to many more years of Strings. In the meantime, watch out for ‘Raat Shabanami’ and get your hands on those cassettes.
