The qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has always be something of a totem figure both to Real World Records and its sister organisation WOMAD, gracing their respective recording studios and stages on many occasions. Appreciation of that mesmerising, undulating voice has been declared far and wide, probably most famously by Jeff Buckley who once described Nusrat as 'my Elvis'. Until his premature death in 1997, Nusrat was a phenomenally prolific performer, a man saluted by the Guinness Book Of Records for the staggering number of albums he recorded, an amount well into three figures.

Love & Devotion brings together two of the truly finest recordings from that teetering pile - the two 1992 records for Real World, Love Songs and Devotional Songs. They are perfect companion pieces, snapshots of a musical giant at the very height of his considerable powers. The artistry of his accompanying Party is faultless, a perfect balance of bubbling tabla drums, weaving harmonium melodies, handclaps and ensemble singing. But this is merely the frame for the masterpiece itself - the great man's unearthly voice, whether ascending with power and commitment or cascading like a shower of glorious musical pearls.

Love Songs focuses upon the ghazal. The word ghazal is from the Arabic 'to converse with women', a dialogue between 'beauty and love' - filled with a great range of moods and feelings, both overt and esoteric. It originated in the land of Hafiz and Sadi (present-day Iran) - the home of the Persian language, Urdu, in which it is generally sung.

The popularity of the form, however, has led to the migration of the ghazal to wherever Asian people live in the world and into languages other than Urdu - such as Hindi, Punjabi and Gujarati.

The Sufis have added many elements to the evolution of the ghazal - potent symbols like 'the wine', 'the rose', 'the nightingale'. 'Love', however, has remained the perennial theme.
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