For decades, Ustad Noor Bakhsh has been a musical hero in Balochistan, the province that reaches from Pakistan to Iran and Afghanistan. Now at an older age he is being rediscovered at forward-thinking festivals such as Le Guess Who?, and by critics from Pitchfork, The Guardian and other media. He can be described as the Jimi Hendrix of the benju, a string instrument that is played with keys. With the benju he mixes traditional melodies with Persian and Kurdish songs and even Bollywood themes, in his own experimental way.

The music of Ustad Noor Bakhsh touches on the ragas from neighbouring country India. For his original compositions he takes inspiration from the nature of his surroundings: the mountains, the jungle and the sounds of the singing birds. The Benju, was once a Japanese children’s toy called the taishōkoto before it was adopted by Balochi musicians and made into the refined folk instrument that it is today. Noor Bakhsh combines it with a small Phillips amp he bought two decades ago. His debut album Jingul was released digitally in 2022, and came out on vinyl via the UK’s Hive Mind Records in 2023.

‘Bakhsh’s benju pours out an auric torrent of notes, cascading and bubbling, speaking in the tongues of birds and animals and singers and gods’ (The Wire).

Noor Bakhsh benju, Doshambay damboora, Daniyal Ahmed damboora/bansuri