The exalted vocal music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sprang from the deep well of Sufi-mystical Islam. Three of the four long pieces on this posthumous release from the great qawwali singer use frustrated romantic love to express spiritual longing. Throughout, exchanges between the husky-voiced Khan and his full-throated male chorus roll over the slap and tumble of tabla drums and clapping and the buoyant waves of harmonium melody.

This recording was made not long before Khan’s sudden death, in 1997, but it offers no world-music cleverness, just the straight-ahead qawwali music that brought him rock-star celebrity not only in his native Pakistan but around the world. The one overtly religious track, "Mother, I Have Gone to Farid," unfolds majestically over some 21 minutes. Only lyric translations like "My Love Has Become a Stranger" suggest the secular nature of the three slightly shorter tracks that follow. The music conveys the same joyous embrace of life in all its godly and earthly dimensions. On the one hand, this is simply another entry in Khan’s huge catalogue of fabulous recordings. But its release is well timed to remind us about the loving, ecstatic face of a religion badly in need of better PR.