Mehraab by Loga Ramin Torkian
LABEL: Electrophone  |||  Digital download available now, CD out June 7, 2011

Mehraab is Loga Ramin Torkian’s first solo release, but he has been an envelope-stretcher of Iranian music for at least a decade, having co-founded previous projects Axiom of Choice and Niyaz. He is still working roughly within the “world music” pigeonhole, but this is definitely the best music I’ve heard from him, likely because of a stronger focus on expressing emotion, as opposed to tinkering with gadgets (Loga Ramin has worked with Jonathan Wilson in the past, building complex custom instruments such as the Kamaan, developed specifically for Loga). He has claimed that the shift in focus would result in the formal techniques (and the like) would arise out of pure necessity, and this is exactly what happened.

“Loga is making Iranian music that is more like what he thinks Iranian music should be...the notion of the music as a ‘shrine’ shines through the most.”

The most important stride on this album is the timbre expansion of the classical Persian repertoire. First, all the instruments here were played by Loga. He is unquestionably an expert with respect to the Iranian musical tradition, but he picked up on a lack of something, a series of limitations regarding the textures and sonic range of Iranian music. He employed his knowledge of computers and digital manipulation to create music so textured it’s almost visual. Consider the synergy between the GuitarViol and synth on track 3, “Golzare Ashegh,” building up to a scintillating harmonic field, punctuated by the resonances in the percussion, until Loga brilliantly cuts it all off which clears the space for Khosro Ansari’s perfect voice. At around 2:50 the drums drop out for one second to reveal a glimpse of a backmasked layer under the vocals, a truly startling moment. Then the drums return, along with the original resonance, the interacting timbres almost tactile.

Ansari is on a good chunk of Mehraab, and his importance can’t be overstated. He is essentially the voice of modern Persian classical, and he is capable of an incredible emotive range, thus complementing Loga’s goals very well. In the first few seconds of the title track, his delayed, reverb-washed howl essentially invokes the heavy darkness that follows, and the first minute of the fifth track (“Chashmeh Jadoo,” my favorite by far) could almost represent the ‘thesis’ of the album: ancient culture seen through the kaleidoscopic lens of now (bold), a boundless discursive space created through synthesis and digital processing. The final track “Avaaz” provides a foil for the fifth track’s dark, pulsing opening, offering a floating, ambient meditation—still with sombre texture but not nearly as heavy. It provides much-needed respite for the listener to digest the journey just undertaken.

“Mehraab” means shrine, and Loga has said that “[m]usic in the end should function as such a place for all of us. A place we can come to, to be truly free.” This infinite space of universal worship, not a physical location and not an individual state—since it is universal, transpersonal—is truly achieved here, and the aforementioned process of synthesis is a remarkable one, a direct result of sampling culture, DIY, and the bedroom production paradigm: by stretching Iranian music’s envelope, particularly with respect to composition and timbre, he actually strengthens its essence. By incorporating conceptual elements from exogenous idioms, he is—in fact—making some of the most authentically-Iranian music out there. Loga is making Iranian music that is more like what he thinks Iranian music should be, and it is in this exploration of ideals and intuitions that the notion of the music as a “shrine” shines through the most. Perhaps it’s troubling that this beautiful discursive shrine is achieved through technology, but means are only means. Highly recommended if you are a human with ears.


REVIEWED BY MANUEL ABREU
MANUEL’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “Golzare Ashegh” • “Chashmeh Jadoo” • “Souz e Del”

  Az Pardeh- Through the Veil by Loga Ramin Torkian