he cornerstone of indie and electronic music emerging from Pakistan seems to be Cape Monze Records. Does it mean we find other labels flippant or other artists not on the Cape roster any less talented? Absolutely not. Poor Rich Boy, Abdullah Siddiqui, Wooly and the Uke, Talal Qureshi, Kashmir, Maanu, Adil Omar, Sunny Khan Durrani and Natasha Noorani are among our favorite artists from the counterculture scene.

However, to find that one place, one record label that’s (a) flying under the radar in some ways and (b) always releasing significant music regularly, we keep going back to Cape Monze Records.

Like a reminder of the reverent rock, punk record label Sub Pop that released music by artists before they found mainstream success such as Beach House, Nirvana and Soundgarden, Cape Monze Records, too, has its heart in the right place.

Among the many releases by the label worth checking out, one of them is a song called ‘Widow’ by Shorbanoor (Shehzad Noor) featuring Iman Shahid.

Before we delve into the song, the credits alone have us hooked. ‘Widow’ is written and composed by Shehzad Noor (Shorbanoor), with music produced by Natasha Ejaz and vocals by Shehzad Noor ft. Iman Shahid. It is mixed and mastered by Zahra Paracha with direction (and editing) of the music video helmed by Joyland’s associate producer, Tabish Habib.

Listen to the song on your headphones or speakers and/or watch its music video, the audio and visual experience will not leave you easily because it provokes, lingers in the mind and makes you think about loss and how you deal with it. A brilliant part is that this song, which dropped last year, is still as enduring as it is surprising. How so many individuals from the counterculture movement came together to work on this song is also beautiful.

Listen to the song on your headphones or speakers and/or watch its music video, the audio and visual experience will not leave you easily because it provokes, lingers in the mind and makes you think about loss and how you deal with it. A brilliant part is that this song, which dropped last year, is still as enduring as it is surprising. How so many individuals from the counterculture movement came together to work on this song is also beautiful.

As for its backstory, singer/songwriter Shehzad Noor (Shorbanoor) explains: “I wrote ‘Widow’ as a sister song to ‘The River’, which is from my last solo EP called Tar. They’re both about grief and loss, but while ‘River’ is a song that comforts, ‘Widow’ reveals the horror of life in the wake of devastation. My songwriting tends to focus on a single moment and a single feeling that arrests me. The song is austere and brutal, and so is the video.”

Matching the thematic idea with which this song was created, the music video by Tabish Habib also follows suit. He, too, explained how he went about the music video.

For Tabish Habib, also associate producer of Joyland and director of ‘Widow’, the idea for the music was born out of horror cinema. He explained, “The idea for the video came from horror films Shezy and I had been watching, including work by David Cronenberg, Ari Aster and Jordan Peele. We were inspired to explore the idea of grief through the visual language of the horror genre.”

Tabish continued, “Samarkand House has wonderful natural light that I really wanted to play with, and ‘Widow’ provided the perfect soundtrack for an unnerving visual narrative.”

Shot in one day at the historical Samarkand House in northern Murree Hills, this music video is as remarkable as the song.

We’re also thrilled to see women in production credits like Natasha Humera Ejaz and Zahra Paracha, which is a sign of changing times and how roles for women are expanding beyond being a vocalist. – Artwork by Minahil Noor