Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Naghmeh Farahmand: Unbound

I'm working on a new track, and need to finish the live concert videos, but in the meantime I wanted to share and album I helped make: Naghmeh Farahmand's solo percussion album 'Unbound'.

Three tracks from Unbound:



Clicking 'Buy' will download the whole album, even though only three tracks are available for preview.

A fourth track in video form (sorry about the low sound quality on the vid…NOT MY FAULT!):

Maryem:


Naghmeh Farahmand comes from a musical family. Her father is one of Iran’s leading percussion masters, Mahmoud Farahmand. Growing up in that milieu, she showed great interest in rhythms and started playing the tonbak when she was 6.

While learning the rhythmic patterns of Persian traditional music she began playing the more melodic santoor under the guidance of Faramarz Payvar and Pashang Kamkar. Besides this traditional education, Naghmeh learned Sufi and Kurdish rhythms on the daf – an instrument she found both powerful and spiritual – with masters Bijan Kamkar and Masoud Habibi. Skilled on a variety of other traditional instruments, Naghmeh has been passing on these skills as a teacher for over 15 years.

Farahmand has played with many well-known Iranian ensembles and has performed widely at important festivals and throughout Europe. She was honoured to perform with Hassan Nahid, Iranian master of the ney and with Hengameh Akhavan, legendary singer of traditional music. Naghmeh also founded Sharghi, a percussion ensemble, which performed for Iran’s national television, recorded numerous pieces and performed live for over a decade.

Naghmeh and I met doing a gig in March 2011, and I was blown away by her playing. I asked if she had an album, and she didn't, so I said 'let's make one'.

I co-produced, engineered, edited and mixed as well as playing a couple small parts (framedrum oooOOOooos etc) and generally sherpa-ing the process. Naghmeh wrote and/or arranged everything, and played everything (and the list of instruments is impressive, esp since I only play ONE instrument :P) : Tonbak, Daf, Dayereh, Framedrums (Tar, Bendir), Udu, Djembe, Cajon, Shaker, Zills, Handclaps, shakers etc etc ETC! The amazing Maryem Hassan sings on 2 tracks, and the amazing Ray Montford mastered the record. Yay for amazing people!

Naghmeh would show up at the studio and announce that she had a new piece, and would record, say, the Tonbak part start to finish (incl sections where there were massive dozen-bar rests) flawlessly, to a clicktrack, then overdub other parts that filled-in, interacted, texturized, contextualized, coloured etc. It was very cool…she had the entire arrangement in her head, and would just lay it down, part by part, and it would gradually bloom and reveal itself.

I'm very proud to have been involved in the making of this album, for sure. Go Naghmeh!


Naghmeh laying down some heavy Tonbak at chez Tala-Wallah!


Enjoy,
E

links:

CD on CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/naghmehfarahmand

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/unbound/id557241432?v0=9989&ign-mpt=uo%3D1

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