Oxford-based musician-producer Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani releases ‘Waiting’, an intimate, hypnotic track addressing the possibility of love after the trauma of abuse.

Minimalist yet sensual, soothing but ambivalent, ‘Waiting’ hinges around the steady beat of a steel pan drum, a guarded bass buzz and a looping, three-note hum so hushed it’s almost as if Zahra daren’t waken a sleeping child. “I like the idea of you, but I keep it cool,” she whisper-sings as layered vocals flutter and rhythms peck and trill like exotic birds.

Taken from forthcoming EP For You, ‘Waiting’ captures that charged, tentative stage of a potential relationship; the earliest steps in a dance that’s sensed rather than known; that time when, as Zahra sings: “we didn’t even have to talk”.

“Waiting’ plays with the idea of building someone up in your mind, almost putting them on a pedestal,” she says. “The idealisation of people that come into your world but learning to set boundaries. The track is about future love, building back after abuse, allowing yourself to open up and feel again.”