Album Review Swet Shop Boys - Cashmere

It’s hardly all doom, gloom and bitter invective however. Playful party jam ‘Tiger Hologram’ is SSB in the club and one of the many moments where producer Redinho’s skills get the time to shine. As well as being an homage to Qawwali music, the digitised harmonium, rhythmic handclaps and 808s all loop into an intoxicatingly addictive hook, whilst Riz and Heems vie in turn for the attentions of an elusive woman. ‘Aaja’ too is concerned with matters of the heart, with a Bollywood love song-style chorus at the heart of it sung liltingly in Urdu by Pakistani singer Ali Sethi, that serves as an interesting contrast with Riz’s sometimes raspy delivery, such as when he snarls “You’re sweet like baklava” at the object of his affections. Again, Redinho’s use of Indian instrumentation here is effective without overpowering, the mixture of twanging sitar and soft tabla beats elevates a structurally simple track into something sublime whilst remaining subtle about it. Although there’s a moment of pause when it’s realised that the vocal sample at the end belongs to Qandeel Baloch, the Pakistani model and social media star who was murdered by one of her brothers in a so-called ‘honour’ killing in July, which lends it a tinge of retrospective sadness. Sadness of a different kind is explored in ‘Half Moghul Half Mowgli’, an introspective Riz track which examines third culture kid blues, accompanied by mournful Indian flute and sees him take on the voices of his detractors and supporters in a kind of fanmail/hatemail faceoff. On the opposite end of the scale, Heems’ solo effort ‘Swish Swish’ is a typical bombastic, swaggering rap song done in his laid-back, stoner-flow style, which mostly conforms to the braggy conventions of the genre, but still pulls no punches when it needs to: “I don’t give a fuck, I stay reppin’ Queens / And Long Island, we wildin’, we stylin’ / They’re still racial profiling!”.

In spite of the heavy material explored during its all too brief runtime, the album ends on a hopeful note. ‘Din-E-ILahi’ is an atmospheric meditation on mortality, which takes its name from a religion founded by the sixteenth-century Mughal emperor Akbar the Great that combined the best elements of Hinduism and Islam. It’s an apt statement for a record that combines the various dichotomies of east and west, Hindu and Muslim, past and present, American and British. Even the pretty sleeve art is a combination of traditional Persian painting and an intricate Mughal miniature, save for the disconcerting presence of a drone and a bald eagle, symbols of modern warfare and American imperial aggression. Taken altogether, this is a piece of work that breathes new life into terms like multiculturalism and diversity, which are often empty buzzwords.

‘Cashmere’ is not just a declaration or a celebration, it’s an affirmation. There’s a quote by Dominican American writer Junot Diaz about how vampires have no reflection in mirrors: “… if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?”’. What Swet Shop Boys have done is to affirm a collective identity: by making their own mirrors so people like them can see themselves reflected back – and the people who aren’t can appreciate those identities too. It’s funny, it’s clever, it’s cultural, it’s historical, it’s political, it’s chaotic, it’s crisp, it’s irreverent, it’s deep, it’s a beautiful thing, but most of all – it’s really, really fucking good. And it’s the real deal.