Discovering a lost Nurat Fateh Ali Khan album is a very big deal. He was more than the best-known Qawwali singer, he was one of the world’s greatest vocalists, whose voice could take wing on flights of ecstasy. He was already a massive star to many by 1990, when Chain Of Light was recorded in a single day with producer Michael Brook. Khan was carrying on what had essentially been the family business for six centuries. The great beauty of this is that the album captures him at his very traditional peak, as he demonstrates in spectacular fashion on the opener “Ya All Ya Rahman. The sound is crystalline, and while the song is slow to reach lift-off, once Khan is airborne, he's heart-stoppingly good.

From there, it never lets up, as Khan leads his eight-strong “party” (band with tabla, harmonium, and chorus) through three more lengthy tracks, including the tortuously complex “Ya Gaus Ya Meeran” which sees some spectacularly vocal acrobatics executed with remarkable smoothness. Every note here is music of the spirit.

Made when he was on the cusp of achieving much wider Western success for his collaborations with Brook and others – they’d already begun recording the Mustt Mustt album - this is very much Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan demonstrating he was the unquestionably the greatest.

Subscribe and Support RootsWorld