(honiunhoni, Pasni)

Wow, what a crazy success! We are still flying on the unexpected but artistically well-deserved triumph of Noor Bakhsh’s first ever tours of Europe last year: The almost 80-year-old traditional musician hailing from Pakistan’s remote Balochistan region was greeted by capacity audiences almost everywhere they played. The performances of Noor and his sidekick Doshambay sent audiences into wild dancing frenzies, a perspective rather unusual for a performance played on two string instruments.

The pair played Roskilde, Le Guess Who?, WOMEX and other major festivals - a total of 40 shows, with short TikTok snippet videos of the concerts going viral immediately after the events (125 k views and more). Ustad Noor Bakhsh plays an unusual instrument with keys the locals call a "Benju", originally a musical toy from Japan called taishōgoto which had been brought to Pakistan by sailors. His first album  "Jingul" is currently receiving rave reviews everywhere. It came out digitally on the new Pakistani imprint honiunhoni at the end of 2022 and has been released on vinyl by Hive Mind Records in the UK in September 2023.