Sheherazaad – Andhera
In “Andhera,” darkness isn’t absence, it’s the thing being addressed directly, praised and blamed and clung to in the same breath. Sheherazaad wrote most of it in Urdu, and the song moves like an invocation more than a pop song, something closer to a hymn aimed at a lover who happens to be made of night.
It’s the first single from her debut album Khudgarzi, out November 20 on Erased Tapes, and the title itself, Urdu for “selfishness,” tells you where the record is headed. Sheherazaad has said she built it around the “Khudgarz Aurat,” the “selfish woman,” a figure historically punished for wanting agency at all. Rather than treat that selfishness as a flaw, the album reframes it as something closer to survival. It’s a bigger step than usual after 2024’s Qasr EP (produced by Arooj Aftab) and last year’s Gulukara (W44 2025), which already had her working through similar ground: women, silence, and what gets erased in the process of being looked at.
“Andhera” It itself came out of an odd, specific moment: she’d just met the person she calls the love of her life, but the fallout from a previous relationship hadn’t cleared yet. So, she wrote it quietly in an ex’s coat closet, keeping her voice low so as not to interrupt him. She calls the result a “frilly goth anthem,” and that’s about right, chamber strings and tuned percussion pulled toward something gothic with a distinctly South Asian inflection underneath. The video strips that arrangement away entirely: an a cappella performance filmed by Vincent Moon, known for his intimate, on-location live sessions, shot in London’s Victoria Park.
Khudgarzi pulls in more than 30 musicians across Brooklyn, London, and California, with contributions arriving from Istanbul, Islamabad, and Trivandrum, and it grew out of a broken engagement that Sheherazaad says left rage and guilt she wasn’t in a hurry to resolve. I wish the album version of “Andhera” got as much attention as the stripped-down video, because the strings and percussion are doing real work that the a cappella take necessarily leaves out.
Tour dates
Europe
- Sep. 6 / Larmer Tree Gardens, UK / End of the Road Festival
- Jan. 20, 2027 / Liverpool, UK / Royal Philharmonic
- Jan. 22, 2027 / Edinburgh, UK / Sneaky Pete’s
- Jan. 23, 2027 / Glasgow, UK / Glad Cafe (Celtic Connections)
- Jan. 25, 2027 / Bristol, UK / The Lantern
- Jan. 27, 2027 / London, UK / Cafe Oto
- Jan. 28, 2027 / Margate, UK / Arc
- Jan. 30, 2027 / Fribourg, Switzerland / Fri-Son
- Feb. 1, 2027 / Amsterdam, Netherlands / Paradiso
- Feb. 2, 2027 / Antwerp, Belgium / De Roma
- Feb. 3, 2027 / Utrecht, Netherlands / Tivoli
- Feb. 6, 2027 / Berlin, Germany / Supermolly
- Feb. 7, 2027 / Jena, Germany / Trafo
- Feb. 8, 2027 / Prague, Czech Republic / Palac Akropolis
- Feb. 11, 2027 / Porto, Portugal / RCA
- Feb. 12, 2027 / Braga, Portugal / venue TBA
- Feb. 13, 2027 / Lisbon, Portugal / ZBD
Asia
- Dec. 3-7 / Pattaya, Thailand / Wonderfruit Festival
