Bonus Feature: Love in Exile

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily on creating a place within the music

Arooj Aftab, Shahzad Ismaily and Vijay Iyer at Figure Eight Recording, 3/2/23.

For pianist Vijay Iyer, singer Arooj Aftab and bassist Shahzad Ismaily, group interplay is an immersive art — sustaining, abiding, practically all-consuming. Love in Exile, as they call their trio, just released a self-titled debut suffused with elastic intuition and selfless surrender. No surprise that these musicians favor the same qualities in conversation: when we sat down earlier this month at Figure 8 Recording in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, I knew to expect a generous exchange.

The interview is now an episode of All Songs Considered, which runs to 40 minutes. I’m grateful to host-producer Robin Hilton not only for a welcoming space but also for an artful edit, which preserves every nuance of the conversation. This evening, an eight-minute excerpt also aired on All Things Considered, reaching a much larger general audience; I want to thank producer Noah Caldwell for being so receptive.

I thought I’d take this moment to provide a glimpse inside the piece, including the top of the interview: six minutes of bantering back-and-forth as the artists are settling in. You could call it warmup footage, but I’m struck by how instantly we’re all just in it — a natural parallel to the alert immediacy of the trio’s musical flow.