SOUNDCHECK NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

After playing up a storm at the Lahooti Melo in Karachi, the Peshawar-Islamabad based instrumental act Khumariyaan is back with several brand-new releases.

As a musical outfit, although their music is steeped in traditional and folk Pashto music, they're usually able to bypass language and cultural barriers by being a completely instrumental act. If you don't have lyrics that need translating, you can just go with the flow of the music and interpret it any way you like.

The band consists of percussionist Shiraz Khan on the zerbaghali (hand-held percussion instrument), guitarists Aamer Shafiq and Sparlay Rawail and Farhan 'Bogey' Bogra on the rabab. While all of the members are equal and contribute equally and all that jazz... Bogey is an absolute magician on the rabab. And it's his strumming that leads you into Sheenai, one of the band's latest releases, before Shiraz accompanies the rabab on the zerbaghali, playing a light, rhythmic percussion that sets an easy pace to the song.

In Sheenai, the band is featuring the vocal talents of Shandana Anwar. The band posted this message with the song: '[This is] our tribute to the folk music of Gilgit-Baltistan and its green-eyed people and stepped green valleys. The word 'sheen' means green in Pashto and is apt for the beauty of the region. This new Pashto song has been a while in the making, and is the next chapter in our rolling vocalist series.'

Instrumental band Khumariyaan features Shandana Anwar's vocals on Sheenai - their tribute to Gilgit-Baltistan

This is the first time the band has officially used a vocalist in their otherwise...