The rhythm of speech II

With this double album, plus DVD, Keyvan Chemirani proves his compositional vision has gone that notch further. The player of daf, zarb, bender, udu and cajon offers us a delightful exchange with nine other musicians from different yet – as he proves – complementary music continents. Two years after the first in these conversations with singers Sudha Ragunathan and Nahawa Doumbia, Chemirani underlines the seemingly endless pool of exchange and harmonisation he has tapped in to. More than ever, he places his percussions at the heart of the prosodic relationships between their voices and the instrumental ornamentations they inspire.

Half the battle is already won thanks to the judicious choice of Keyvan’s collaborators. Sudha Ragunathan has proven her pedigree through her collaborations with Titi Robin. This adept of sacred music from southern India refuses the constraints of the nigh-scientific dimension in Carnatic music and proves the high degree of flexibility this millennium style offers. “I understood that sound has no barrier,” she explains in the excellent sleeve notes by France Culture producer Caroline Bourgine, “And even when you work with voices you don’t know you can still manage to integrate with them.” The voices are those of Iranian Ali Reza Ghorbani and Nahawa Doumbia, the rough diamond from the Wassoulou region of Mali.

The latter is backed by the exquisite kora of Ballaké Sissoko, and both Malians represent the improvised and unbridled energy of the double-album. “Her coarse, grating voice fills with raw matter very simple melodies based on pentatonic scales,” explains Chemirani when evoking Doumbia’s singing, “… (They) harmonise wonderfully with each other.” Arguably one of the finest examples is “Terik’e” where Cherimani constructs a complex bridge between the Didadi music from Wassoulou and his Persian modal arrangements. Didadi is a style based on ceremonies around the sowing and harvesting periods and Doumbia excels in these vocal jousts. The ney of Eshagh Chegini provides an unusual resonance to her voice, and the smoothness of their harmonisation is once again a tribute to Chemirani’s arrangements.

Behind this project one recognises the research of Martina Catella. This ethnomusicologist was the initiator of the first opus two years ago and her ability to popularise these complex music styles appear to have had a deep influence on the approach by Keyvan. Each song is a gem that is a culmination of a rigorous process of experimentation. The entire experience is beautifully brought to life in the accompanying DVD, where Chemirani explains the challenges the ten musicians successfully overcame to bring out this silky recording.

Daniel Brown

January 2006