Narrante

This album was simultaneously released in Iran on Hermes Records and internationally on ECM. Both of these are ‘connoisseur’ labels with sometimes introspective repertoire, yet both reaching remarkably wide audiences by presenting music with impeccable recording quality and artwork. This album is true to form in all of these respects.

Khayam plays guitar, Matbou Riahi plays clarinet: instruments that aren’t native to their homeland. They apply fixed compositional structures, as used in contemporary Western classical music writing, to the forms, modes and rhythms from Persian music. They also employ improvisational techniques from both Persian music and contemporary jazz; the pianist Keith Jarrett's way of integrating free improvisation into tight formal structures comes to mind (and Jarrett is mentioned by the artists as a source of inspiration). Elements from lesser-known Persian traditions are implied, such as the vocal improvisation traditions from Kurdistan; and the guati music, made for a healing ceremony in Baluchistan with repetitive rhythmic figures and pentatonic scales that are typical of the region, and owing much to the music of African slaves. The music is fragile and vulnerable, but it takes us on an engaging journey.