{"id":91149,"date":"2026-07-07T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/?p=91149"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:28:10","slug":"arooj-aftab-features-on-bonobos-new-album-with-fire-on-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/2026\/07\/07\/arooj-aftab-features-on-bonobos-new-album-with-fire-on-the-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Arooj Aftab Features on Bonobo&#8217;s New Album With &#8216;Fire on the Water&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Recorded at Neil Young\u2019s legendary Broken Arrow Ranch studio, the track stands out on the album, with Arooj Aftab delivering a haunting vocal performance in Urdu.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Grammy Award-winning vocalist, composer and producer Arooj Aftab brings her\u00a0distinctive style and Urdu poetry\u00a0to \u2018Fire on the Water,\u2019 the\u00a0<strong>collaborative<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>new single<\/strong>\u00a0with the finest purveyor of electronica, Bonobo, from his upcoming album,\u00a0&#8216;Distance in Static.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Set for release on September 11, Aftab is one of a striking cast of artists featured on the album, including names like J<strong>oy Crookes<\/strong>, <strong>Nil\u00fcfer Yanya<\/strong>, <strong>Ichiko Aoba<\/strong>, <strong>Nicole Miglis<\/strong> (of Hundred Waters) and <strong>Aanya Martin<\/strong>. On \u2018Fire on the Water,\u2019 the plucked guitar, cello, violin and fuzzy synths weave a gossamer web around Aftab\u2019s craveable, inviting voice, which has been described by Bonobo as the point where he could first hear the album taking shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a year defined by an expansive run of collaborations, Aftab&#8217;s link-up with Bonobo feels like a natural extension of her ever-evolving artistic practice.\u00a0A long-time admirer of Bonobo and his genre-defying body of work, Aftab travelled from her Brooklyn base to Woodside, a secluded town known for its towering redwoods and hikes by the river, where Bonobo aka Simon Green recorded a large portion of the album at Neil Young\u2019s legendary Broken Arrow Ranch studio. Emerging from these Ranch sessions was the enchanting \u2018Fire on the Water,&#8217; which evolved, almost accidentally, from a rough acoustic guitar loop recorded while Green was testing studio inputs one morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bonobo - Fire on the Water (feat. Arooj Aftab) (Official Visualiser)\" width=\"702\" height=\"395\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jvzd-35w6pM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:1px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI had assembled different verses of my close friend Yasra Rizvi&#8217;s poems together to voice this theme of desire and fire from afar,<em>\u00a0<\/em>and I was trying to work the words and the melody around a different idea Bonobo had, but it just wasn\u2019t flying,\u201d recalls Aftab, who recently reimagined &#8216;Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)&#8217; in Urdu with producer Anish Kumar for Riz Ahmed\u2019s series\u00a0&#8220;BAIT.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two abandoned the idea, went for lunch and a walk, and in the evening Green tried something else. On hearing it, Aftab responded immediately, layering vocals to produce\u00a0one of the record\u2019s standout moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was like, WAIT&#8230; this beat is inviting something, the fire on the water will work here. So I started weaving it in, line by line, and he started playing that guitar riff. We had this astonishing, hushed excitement as we kept putting the pieces together because we could feel that we were making something very special,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Green\u2019s\u00a0meticulously processed and restrained instrumentation\u00a0allows Aftab\u2019s vocals to breathe\u00a0life and longing into the words, and he was equally affected by the final result. \u201cWhen that song happened, that&#8217;s when I could first see an album coming into shape,\u201d says Green. \u201cWe were both like, \u2018Oh, this is really special.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Fire on the Water ft. Arooj Aftab\u2019 is now available for streaming across all platforms. Also releasing simultaneously is the more club-focused single, \u2018Drift,&#8217; which has quickly emerged as a firm fan favorite of Bonobo&#8217;s sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>For more music updates and\u00a0new releases,\u00a0follow TFword on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/tf.word\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thefckingword\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/thefckingword\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">X<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:9px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>You May Also Like:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/2026\/07\/03\/biggest-music-festivals-in-the-uk-you-should-attend\/\">Biggest Music Festivals in the UK You Should Attend<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/2026\/06\/24\/fred-again-announces-highly-anticipated-india-tour-dates\/\">Fred Again Announces Highly Anticipated India Tour Dates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/2026\/06\/18\/seedhe-maut-unveil-massive-uk-europe-and-north-america-tour\/\">Seedhe Maut Unveil Massive UK, Europe and North America Tour<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recorded at Neil Young\u2019s legendary Broken Arrow Ranch studio, the track stands out on the album, with Arooj Aftab delivering a haunting vocal performance in Urdu. Grammy Award-winning vocalist, composer and producer Arooj Aftab brings her\u00a0distinctive style and Urdu poetry\u00a0to \u2018Fire on the Water,\u2019 the\u00a0collaborative\u00a0new single\u00a0with the finest purveyor of electronica, Bonobo, from his upcoming<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/2026\/07\/07\/arooj-aftab-features-on-bonobos-new-album-with-fire-on-the-water\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":184965152,"featured_media":91160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7915,4294],"tags":[10772,5665,2796,2980,10538],"coauthors":[5152],"class_list":["post-91149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-music","tag-arooj-aftab","tag-bonobo","tag-electronica","tag-music-news","tag-new-album"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184965152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91149"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91169,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91149\/revisions\/91169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91149"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ticketfairy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=91149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}