Golfam Khayam, Mona Matbou Riahi - Narrante (2016) [TR24][OF]

Narrante is the fascinating ECM debut album of two Iranian musicians, Golfam Khayam and Mona Matbou Riahi, otherwise known as the Naqsh Duo. The guitarist and clarinettist, both born in Tehran, have established a shared musical language which draws upon their individual experiences with contemporary composition and improvisation and reflects upon – and transforms – elements of their homeland’s rich traditions…
“Music is about exposing a personal search and the freedom of experiencing,” says Mona Matbou Riahi. “Culture, language, landscape, people, memories and encounters…” The encounter between Matbou Riahi and Khayam has proven to be fortuitous, a meeting of players with compatible priorities, who had been travelling along similar paths. They founded their duo in 2014 and recorded Narrante in July 2015, in Lugano, where they met, for the first time, with producer Manfred Eicher, who had followed some of their music via tapes and videos.
“The whole album has an invisible or discreet string running through it, which sews the tracks together,” Golfam Khayam explains. “But at the same time each piece is separate and has a different source, as a very personal glance at the roots of Persian music. Finally those sources are synthesized and integrated. It’s not ‘traditional’ anymore; it’s no longer from that zone. The freshness and purpose of improvisation come mostly from the Persian side, while the careful structure and careful crafting comes from Western contemporary music. We take these elements and try and figure out a formal structure or find a frame or plot which we can craft them into. Some of the pieces have open sections for improvisation and some are completely pre-composed yet sound improvised.” Both musicians explore extended techniques as well as the sound colour combinations available from acoustic guitar and clarinet, the ways in which “each instrument can vibrate the sound of the other, how clarinet can reflect itself in the guitar and vice versa.” …..

TRACKLIST
1. Testamento 05:22
2. Arioso 04:01
3. Lacrimae 08:39
4. Battaglia 09:41
5. Parlando 05:40
6. Sospiro 05:16
7. Narrante 05:38
8. Silenzio 05:54
9. Lamento - Furioso 05:43

PERSONNEL
Golfam Khayam - guitar
Mona, Matbou Riahi - clarinet