Mustafa once again demonstrates that his words weigh whole worlds. Inviting the album is "Name of God," a poetic and gut-punch meditation on loss, memory, and the fluid nature of human connection.
Overdelicate but forceful guitar strums and the steady pulse of a creeping bassline, Mustafa's voice unspools like an intimate conversation, one that feels more honest in the departed's presence than in the living's company. "Name of God" has a muted devastation, every lyric unpacking a feeling of longing and disillusionment. Mustafa wonders if he ever really knew someone he thought he did, and in the process, transforms his reflection into a confession that's as intimate as it is universal.
"Name of God" lingers in the pain of the unknown. Its folk-distilled charm sounds deceptively sunny, and its rhythmic lilt brims with well-being, but it has a cold emotional core. Like always, Mustafa exists in the ambivalent gray area between poetry and music, constructing songs that feel less performance than prayer.
With Dunya, and most notably with "Name of God," Mustafa welcomes us into his world of the below, the intimate, the afterworld that continues to torment us when love, loss, and time have transformed it past recognition.