American songwriter Sheherazaad returns with haunting new single Gulukara

American singer and storyteller Sheherazaad returns today with new single Gulukara (Songstress), featuring childhood friend and Kodaikanal-bred rapper Irfana. The song is a nocturnal hymn highlighting the historical confluence of sex work and female artistry. It’s a lewd, yet wizened dialogue between two songstresses who converse in the belly of an urban underworld. Their gift for song is both exalted and profaned; their bells tarnished, and their harmonies veined with smoky fatigue. Hovering between carol and dirge, the piece unfolds with a spectral sparseness, a bare-boned brittle ingenuity. Against this fragile scaffolding, Sheherazaad’s voice emerges not as ornament but as apparition: ghostly, wounded, yet defiant. 

Sheherazaad’s first EP for Erased Tapes, Qasr, was released in spring 2024 to widespread acclaim, and has since been on the road, performing the songs and new compositions, working out arrangement and structure of the material whilst on stage with her band.

This summer saw performances across Europe and UK this past summer, including notably performances at Fusion and Deershed festivals, and a sold out London headline at Servant Jazz Quarters. Sheher and her band will return to Europe for a run across theatres in Belgium in January.

• listen to Gulukara feat. Irfana