Her first Rumi disc, Rooz O Shab, came out in 2006, a partnership with the Iranian artist Reza Derakshani. Five Rumi-units later we reach Spring. She rolls the poet around in her mouth and groans him out through a rash thicket of harsh erotic spit (example: “Autumn”). She’s more daring now, I think, than she used to be. Goudarzi has interpreted other classical writers, too — Hafez and Attâr both pop up on Hayrân (2008) — but Rumi is her constant.
Khan, the sitar player who used to be one third of Ghazal, recorded with her for the first time in 2008, on Shams, and again on Delbar (2009) and then on Dawning, which was released in February this year. Dawning had a saxophone and a piano and a jazz ensemble feel but the brisk tone of Khan’s sitar sans jazz makes this one sound less cluttered, or, say, less multitudinously interpreted. He gets his own shot at ecstatic Sufism on “Madness”, alongside the tabla player Abhiman Kaushal, but I’d say it’s the delicate little moments where he shines — just listen to the tiny high tickles on “Blissful”.