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Crosstown Arts presents Arooj Aftab at Crosstown Theater with an opening performance by Ouri. This concert is presented in part by Sonosphere, Inc.
Doors at 6:30 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Crosstown Arts is requesting proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test for this event. Please be prepared to present your vaccination card or a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours at check-in. Masks are required.
Her music is inspired by the poetry and musicality of Rumi, Abida Parveen, and other Sufi poets, as well as the reworking of classical Pakistani and North Indian forms like khayal and kafi. She says Sufi words have impacted her writing: “It is very much about the feeling that (Sufi poetry) leaves you with: calmness, peace, patience, simplicity. And then sadness, longing, wandering, searching, openness, oneness. I try to take all these qualities and weave them into my music.” She is adamant that her music not be defined as retro; instead, she’d prefer that her music be understood as a new approach to an old form. She says her music is, “something new that’s both musically and politically resonant for the contemporary moment.”
In 2011, NPR listed Arooj as one of the Top 100 Young Composers of today, alongside names such as Grammy Award-winning Esperanza Spalding and Fusion Jazz piano virtuoso Vijay Iyer. The New York Times included Arooj in their list of Best Concerts of 2012. TimeOut Magazine rated one of her collaborative projects in the Top 10 Classical Albums of 2013. Most recently, Curious Animal Magazine has listed Bird Under Water among the 10 best albums including Bjork, Sufjan Stevens, and Kendrick Lamar.
Ouri is both a producer and a performing artist, a DJ, a cello & harp player, a vocalist, songwriter and composer. Heralded in the electronic music space for a breadth of sound that reaches into the variety of her abilities, Ouri grows beyond its confines for the next phase of her career as a solo artist.
Ourielle Auvé, known professionally as Ouri, grew up in France in a family of afro-carribean descent before arriving in Montreal at the age of 16 to pursue a degree in composition. Here her artistry and vision were able to flourish, establishing herself in the city’s music community as a producer, collaborating with peers like Helena Deland and Mind Bath, and circulating Montreal’s rich, underground rave culture with wizardry late-night DJ sets.
Tapped for Red Bull Music Academy’s 2017 Montréal Bass Camp, it was a quick ascent for the producer turned songstress. Opportunities quickly followed suit. She was invited to headline Boiler Room’s Montreal show, signed to Ghosty (international) & Make it Rain Records (Canada) for the release of her EP ‘Superficial’ — dubbed a “startling, exploratory piece of digital soul” by Clash Magazine — and was asked to make official remixes for the likes of Tokimonsta, Selah Sue, Busty and the Bass and others.
Invited to support Jacques Greene, Yves Tumour & Kllo live in concert, Ouri toured the world through 2019, popping up in America, Europe, the UK and Mexico across a busy year supporting the release of her EP and growing notoriety, as affirmed by millions of streams and praise from Fader, Line of Best Fit, Clash, Jamz Supernova, Red Bull and Majestic Casual.
It was in the many collaborations through Ouri’s journey as a producer that the itch to explore her own abilities as a vocalist and songwriter took shape. Arriving in Montreal Ouri dreamed of being a composer, hiding her identity and womanhood in an enigma behind the laptop, staying hidden and ambiguous as a means of survival. Yet, with a burning sense of limitation, masked in compromise between herself as a producer and the accompanying vocalist, swirled with the catalyst of a breakup spinning ideas of new beginnings, Ouri embraced the inevitable. What comes next is the first manifestation of said change, an initial offering of a project fully imaged and executed by Ouri, the producer, the song-writer and the voice.
Recent times have seen Ouri embrace a period of realignment, finding solace in her artistic practice while staying close to home to work on a new project poised for release next year. On it, she stretches beyond the boundaries of electronica for a deliberate synthesis of moods and sounds that allow for a purity that no longer lives inside her computer.
Ouri’s multi-instrumental talents and classical training steer her approach to melody and bass in entrancingly emotive, bold and playful ways. Pairing traditional song structure with abstract spatial dynamics she creates unparalleled tension between aggressive rhythmic progression and soothing harmonic fluidity. At the centre of it all lies Ouri’s ethereal voice; her words and melodies lay ground for a soulful emotional honesty that swirl around deftly produced arrangements of harp, cello, steel guitar, synthesizer and a mélange of percussion.
Ouri is both fierce and delicate in its most evocative balance as expands her sonic spectrum in her next offering. With single ‘Shape of It’ — a song composed exclusively of her performance on cello and harp — Ouri exposes her bare vocals to find space for vulnerability. She sings of fear in a manner in which to look past it, to build a safe place after abuse, to desire hope as a means of generating hope, to celebrate sex, to celebrate creation, all while in these times of crisis.
