ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) paid tribute to the late qawwal Aziz Mian with a performance by his son Imran Aziz on his death anniversary on Dec 6.

In a two hour performance, Mr Aziz performed tracks such as `Nabi Nabi Ya Nabi` and Allah He Jane Kon Bashar`, and received frenetic applause in return.

Among his final renditions were `Teri Soorat`and `Mian Sharabi`, and the latter in particularly created an exhilarating sound, enriched by the layering of percussion and vocals and the unceasing undercurrent of the tabla, which continued for over 40 minutes before being cut short due to time constraints.

A member of the audience, Faiza Shahid, said: `It was like music dancing in the ears.

Dr Najeeb Aftab added: `Aziz Mian`s music is a treat for the soul and the intellect.

What followed the traditional gawwall performance was a daring fusion of traditional qawwali with heavy guitar riffs and drums by Mr Aziz and his new band Qawwalistan, featuring Zeejah Fazli on electric guitar and Alan Smith on drums.

Introducing the band, Mr Aziz said: `The world is heading towards fusion music, and 70pc of it is a blend of various sounds. The audiences want something different too.

The band was formed as a result of experimentation by Mr Aziz, who merged traditional music with western instruments.

`Western music instruments are inter-esting the thump and thrash of the drums and raw noise of the electric guitars and there is no harm in blending them,` Mr Aziz added.

The band`s renditions of `Man Atka Bay Parwa De Naal` and `Jhoolay Lal` were par-ticularly well received.

However, not everyone enjoyed the fusion of genres. Asma Khan, in the audience, said: `They should not have mixed the traditional qawwali performance with their new sound. They should havekept the unique sound for another performance.` However, she added that the traditional qawwazi was beautiful.

Hira Khan added that the fusion was too loud, and did not think the musicians were well synchronised.