If the opening guitar line of “Vo Kuch” doesn’t prove this to be an inordinate ghazal, perhaps the inclusion of Cape Breton fiddle on vocalist Kiran Ahuwalia’s latest album seals that fate. Born in India and reared in Toronto, Ahluwalia’s wide-eyed cosmopolitanism was tempered with a long affection for this classical Persian art form. She went to great lengths to learn from masters, traveling from Bombay and Hyderabad, as well as scouring streets for unrecorded maestros. Her devotion has paid off well, applying a highly literate acumen to maodern ghazal. Like Pakistani qawwali, ghazals are most often reinterpretations of ancient poetry. Here Ahluwalia recruits a few friends to help her pen modern tales of hopeful love and heartbreak. The ghazal uses this idea of longing to express the joys and pains of being human on a physical, as well as metaphysical, plane: the seeking of the beloved are the same prayers of union with the Beloved. Adding in gorgeous guitar lines from husband Rez Abassi and the brilliant fiddling of Natalie MacMaster, the classical elements of tablas, sarangi, tampura and harmonium find a welcoming home in the expanding fusion of Eas/West future folk. When Abassi and MacMaster join forces on “Jhanjra,” a traditional Punjabi song about staying humble in your flamboyancy, the jazzy Celtic idioms sound completely natural amid the handclaps and Ahluwalia’s high-pitched master. Even in the darker moments – “Raabh Da Roop,” a song in which the singer “found my love but lost myself” – there is comfort in uncertainty. When this symphony of sadness concludes, you feel clean, purified. The journey may have been challenging, but when it ends you return home.

-DB