Jon-Alec Raubeson spekas to Aicha Khalid on the liberation and soaring high of the Junoon sound Junoon had a present of their own for Pakistan on its 50th birthday.

Their fourth album, Azadi was recorded and released within a month and hit the market coinciding with the Golden Jubilee Independence anniversary. The album brought with it the professional expertise of Jon-Alec Raubeson, to Pakistan. He was the producer of the album. Two years later, Junoon have their fifth album, Parwaaz, all set to be released. Once again Jon-Alec’s hands have worked the production.

Growing up with Salman Ahmed and Brian O’Connell and knowing them for 25 years, introduced Jon to Junoon that has forged a strong bond between him and the band. "We went to high school together. We were all guitar players, playing in each other’s bands and getting into trouble together. Salman would come in and sit in with my band. We know each other well enough to have a good argument about something and still get through. This type of relationship is very important when its producer and artist as you need to trust the person you’re working with."

Azadi and Parwaaz are the handiwork of Jon’s proficiency and he talks about both the experiences. "We could not have done Parwaaz without Azadi, as Parwaaz was the result of Azadi. Azadi was an experiment, where the idea was to do an album which was a rock album without drums, incorporating the tabla and dholak to give a big rock sound and still be true to the South-Asian musical tradition, rhythmically, lyrically and melodically. I had pretty much of an idea what to do but we didn’t know whether it would work. We did three songs, ‘Kyun Pareshan Haye Tu’, ‘Khudi’ and ‘Sayonee’, evaluated whether we were on the right track and we all unanimously said, yes to that. Azadi wasn’t exactly Junoon’s sound, but was more acoustic." "When we even talked about doing Parwaaz, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. On Parwaaz every track has drums and dholak. At the end of Azadi, we decided to take those songs and transplant them into Junoon’s live sound. In Parwaaz that sound has been cranked up a few notches. There’s no tabla on Parwaaz. We played the songs, toured and worked together to discover how this sound would work best. Over the course of ‘97 and early ‘98, I traveled with them and mixed a lot of their shows for them and it helped me a lot."

"What really did it for us was the August 9, 1998 show in Central Park, New York. The 24 track show was recorded, which I mixed in the studio. That really was where it all came together and I had the concept in my head of how it would work in the studio. It was a very grueling mix because while recording a live show, whatever you play, that’s what you get. And we don’t like to play with click tracks. That would be death to Junoon’s music, because their music has to move, songs which like to be laid back in the verses and to drive more in the choruses."

Azadi and Parwaaz were both recorded in Pakistan and were very eventful affairs. "Azadi was recorded in Karachi in five weeks. We had lots of bijli problems. We’d be doing a take, sounding really good, be almost at the end and then; Kaput! Sometimes the electricity would go off for a coupla minutes, otherwise for eight hours. When the electricitywent off for half a second and then came back on, we had one problem when it ate the tape and we lost everything on it. We had to go to our backup copy that didn’t have everything but was close. Parwaaz was recorded at Digital Fidelity studio in Lahore, so the electricity was more reliable. It had sometechnical limitations but that made up for the space we were allowed.

The only problem we had was kite flying because they would short out the electric wires. "The album was recorded in three weeks in studio sessions of 12 to 18 hours. About two weeks into the recording, my ears were just shot! Could you imagine recording an album with no ears? You’re listening for tonality, pitch, equalization, frequencies, etc. Junoon went and did shows, while I regrouped for 2 and a half days. We finished up the tracking and then mixed, another grueling mix. Each mix on Azadi took about half and hour to 45 minutes, while the shortest mix on Parwaaz was five days and the longest one, 2 days. You have the complex element of drums, dholak and electric guitar. Everything on the album is played by people and that’s what makes it real making you feel the life and emotion in the songs."

Parwaaz is a torturous anticipation for Junoon fans’ resulting in audible withdrawal symptoms. Jon offers an insight into the mystery. "There’s ‘Bulleya’, ‘Piyar Bina’, ‘Mitti’, which to me capture best the sound of the album in terms of the dholak/drum combination. The guitar comes in, bringing you back to the dholak, when the bass is going when the drums synch in and the melody lines just swims in on top of all that.

‘Ghoom’ is another very powerful song. From beginning to end all the songs in Parwaaz sound like a body of work. They’re never consistent and yet they sound as if they’re on the same album. From beginning to end you’ll be listening to similarities and yet they all explore different rhythms, melodies and lyrical concepts. Very deep album."

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