Nabihah Iqbal will release new album ‘Dreamer’ on April 28th.
The new album can trace its root back to the start of 2020, when Nabihah Iqbal’s studio was broken into. Losing expensive equipment and the demos for a proposed album, she was already suffering from burn out, and a broken hand. While dealing with police she received a call from family – her grandfather had suffered a brain haemorrhage.
Boarding a plane to Karachi, Pakistan the next day, her subsequent experiences acted as a much-needed salve, helping to soothe her, and prompt fresh ideas. “Going to Pakistan turned into a blessing in disguise,” she says. “It affected my perspective on music. At the time, being forcefully removed from the whole scenario of the burglary felt frustrating, but it was the best thing that could have happened.”
“For the first time ever, I’ve made music where I’ve been more patient with it,” she says. “Normally, when you’re an electronic music producer, you go into the studio, switch your computer on and start working on Ableton or Logic and then build up from that. Whereas, I decided not to go near all that for ages, and I was also forced into this approach in a way, because of the studio burglary and then being in Pakistan, away from all my equipment. Instead, I had to let the ideas develop in my head.”
New album ‘Dreamer’ was born from this mindset. Out on April 28th it finds the songwriter, producer, DJ, broadcaster, and academic spinning the dials once more.
Take new single ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’. The clipped guitar tones recall those early Cure singles, while the swathes of effects-laden sound have a shoegaze appeal. The clinical vocal is reminiscent of Pet Shop Boys, but the song itself pursues a defined sense of originality.
A left-field turn, it’s also a wonderful pop song –
