{"product_id":"sheherazaad-khudgarzi","title":"SHEHERAZAAD - Khudgarzi","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘Khudgarzi’\u003c\/em\u003e (English: Selfishness), is the anticipated follow-up to the American songstress-producer-theatre artist \u003cstrong\u003eSheherazaad\u003c\/strong\u003e’s highly praised 2024 EP \u003cem\u003e‘Qasr’\u003c\/em\u003e. The record encompasses a woman's forensic deep dive into the space between duty and autonomy; sacrifice and survival. While composing, Sheherazaad became consumed by the figure of the so-called Khudgarz Aurat – the \"Selfish Woman\" – a label she had heard since childhood, levelled at women whose desire for agency was often met with suspicion or exile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Selfishness became a kind of silent prayer,\" Sheherazaad recalls. \"A portal into a haunted universe of anxieties and desires. I was made to fear a 'selfish' kind of woman – embracing her felt like stepping into a forbidden forest I'd been running away from.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWritten in the aftermath of a broken engagement, \u003cem\u003e'Khudgarzi'\u003c\/em\u003e carries the emotional debris of rage, guilt and grief, while imagining an alternative mythology populated by women who shapeshift between storytellers, courtesans, historians, survivors and witnesses. Across ten theatrical pieces, Sheherazaad refuses neat resolutions, instead creating an oral archive where feminine survival is neither sanctified nor condemned, but revealed as an ongoing ritual of performance, strategy and insurgency.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlongside the album’s announcement, she shares \u003cem\u003e\"Andhera\"\u003c\/em\u003e (Darkness), an album centrepiece. The song emerges from the same shadowy universe first conjured by last year's single \u003cem\u003e\"Gulukara\"\u003c\/em\u003e. It’s a Bolly-goth pop hymn, following a vilified lover who ushers in cosmic darkness, transmuting heartbreak into something vast, mythical and the deepest pigment of darkness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMusically, \u003cem\u003e'Khudgarzi'\u003c\/em\u003e expands the wilderness of Sheherazaad's signature dystopic folk-noir and dark pop sound, where instruments from Hindustani, Turkish, Arabic and Carnatic traditions – including tanbur, santoor, veena, rabab, ghatam and gungaroo – intertwine with weather recordings, breath, echoes, moans and the sounds of the animal world. Resultingly, every song becomes its own self-contained universe: an enchanted back alley, a desert wasteland, a rain-soaked steel plant, or an artificial constellation suspended in silence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMostly sung in Urdu, with passages in English and Tamil, the album explores layered questions of language and belonging. Throughout, Sheherazaad preserves the intimacy of room noise and stillness, allowing spacious arrangements to absorb the brooding lyricism. \"So much music feels like an assault to me,\" she says. \"I want to open a gentle rupture, where a listener may truly sit with herself.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe songs came together like a diasporic family across disjointed time zones: recorded between Brooklyn, London, and the San Francisco Bay Area, with fragments arriving from Istanbul, Islamabad, and Trivandrum among others.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA cast of more than thirty musicians contributes to the project, including \u003cstrong\u003eRia Modak\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eSarathy Korwar\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eJay Chakravorty\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eShunya\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eQasim Naqvi\u003c\/strong\u003e, while emerging India-based artists \u003cstrong\u003eIrfana\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eDaatri Dadhich\u003c\/strong\u003e appear as sympathetic co-narrators. Though born from an exploration of selfishness, the record ultimately became an exercise in shared storytelling and generosity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeither villain nor virtue, \u003cem\u003e'Khudgarzi'\u003c\/em\u003e presents selfishness as instinct and reclamation. Rather than offering answers, Sheherazaad leaves space for listeners to navigate their own relationship between sacrifice and selfhood, illuminating a world of contradictions that lingers long after the final note.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Erased Tapes","offers":[{"title":"DINKED Edition #437","offer_id":59262030807385,"sku":"SDZ-51535","price":36.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":59261898719577,"sku":"SDZ-51534","price":33.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0588\/3455\/0945\/files\/437_MAIN.png?v=1788272714","url":"https:\/\/spindizzyrecords.com\/products\/sheherazaad-khudgarzi","provider":"Spindizzy Dublin","version":"1.0","type":"link"}