This feels like déjà vu. Yes, Rushk is ‘coming back’ for the third time. Uns Mufti, the founder, co-songwriter, producer and bassist of this band from the late early 2000s (gosh, it’s almost been close to two decades!), has finally decided he is done with getting ‘other’ singers to sing Rushk songs. He has decided to sing this one himself.

Generation Z may not know who they are, so here’s a little explainer: some 20-odd years ago, when Pakistan’s music industry was going through a resurgence never seen before (or since) and new music radio and television channels were popping up all over the place … along came Rushk.

They were the underground-ish band that the artists in the music industry listened to. And only the most hardcore Pakistani music aficionados even knew they existed. When Rushk first came out, they amassed a cult following but never really broke through in the mainstream media the way many of their pop or rock music peers did.

Their music videos from the only complete album they’ve ever released, Sawal (relaunched in 2006, but originally released several years prior) — Behti Naar and Khuahish — were controversial. They dealt with everything from the repercussions of war to fighting your own inner demons, and were ‘allegedly’ banned. They did find some airplay but were, at some point, abruptly taken off mainstream media. Behti Naar was even used as the soundtrack for director Mehreen Jabbar’s critically acclaimed television drama Malal (2009).

Rushk makes a comeback yet again, but their latest is very different from their previous efforts

And then Rushk kind of faded away until, sometime in 2014, when they decided to ‘come back’. While the original line-up had Uns Mufti and Ziyaad Gulzaar — who collectively wrote, composed, played the songs while Nazia Zuberi lent her soulful and yet haunting voice to the songs — the 2014 line-up saw the addition of Tara Mahmood (who replaced Nazia as the lead singer after Nazia emigrated abroad), Sikandar Mufti (Co-VEN and Mauj) and Ali Jafri (ex-Noori). All of these were prominent members of the music industry. This line-up released a song, Mera Naam, which didn’t make quite the impact Behti Naar did. They released a few more songs on their platforms online and then sort of faded away again.

This time though, Rushk is only just Uns and, considering that the band has always followed his and Ziyyad’s direction, perhaps that is enough. Their latest track, Muwaaslati Saiyara [Communications Satellite], is up on the band’s SoundCloud page [https://soundcloud.com/rushk-official].

In the first few seconds of the song, I was a bit taken aback. The intro of Muwaaslati Saiyara does not have that signature, alternative rock, moody Rushk sound. But then Uns starts to sing (though it might be stretching it to call it singing), and the moodiness returns. The overall sound is very reminiscent of the late 90s-early 2000s when Europe was going through a dream pop phase and there was a merging of electronic and progressive rock to create a more lounge-y sound.

You have to wear headphones and crank up the volume a bit to hear the vocals clearly enough to understand what’s being sung. Uns is ‘singing’ as low as possible, almost like he’s mumbling the lyrics.

Songwriting, especially in contemporary pop and rock music, is not our strongest and most consistent forte. There are very few acts that actually get it right. I’m not sure why but, quite often, if you listen to popular songs very closely, despite being beautifully composed, performed and produced, the lyrics will either be incredibly basic and follow the rhythm of the song, or don’t actually make a whole lot of sense.

Rushk’s Muwaaslati Saiyara follows in the latter style’s footsteps. Behold some of the lyrics:

“Rotay rotay hasna bhi to humein aaye na
Inteha ho jati hai jab bhi hon hum tanha
Jab bhi main kuchh bhi kahoon
Dil ko phir bhi main chup rakhoon

[We don’t know how to laugh when we are crying,
We are at our wits’ end when we are alone,
Whenever I say something,
I don’t allow my heart to talk]

And a little later:

Roti roti tum kabhi bhi hasti kyun nahin?
Aasmano se tum bhi barasti kyun nahin?
Tum chaahey kuchh bhi kaho
Raat ka tau kuchh karo.

[Why don’t you laugh sometimes while you cry?
Why don’t you also fall like rain from the sky?
No matter what you say,
Do something about the night.]

Lyrically, Muwaaslati Saiyara is nowhere close to Behti Naar or Khuahish or any of the other songs in the Sawal album, which were also written by the same person. In Muwaaslati Saiyara it feels like Uns has lost his voice, lyrically. Musically, however, it is still beautiful. Rushk’s sound has evolved and the compositional expertise is evident. I would listen to it over and over again for its crisp production, dream pop sound and... moody mumblings.

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 26th, 2020