Sâzenda

This is a finely constructed album that adds yet another dimension to the modernisation process undertaken by Khaled Arman and his rubab. It opens with three folk dances from his native Kabul that allies Arman’s rubab with the zerbaghali drum of young Siar Hashimi. “It is urgent for the zerbaghali to recover its very fine repertory,” writes Arman in the sleevenotes, “It has almost disappeared in Afghanistan today because of the war.”

It is Siar Hashimi who tucks this Afghan goblet drum under his arm and performs a 16-beat rhythmic cycle of astonishing maturity. He follows up with a solo in honour of the instrument’s last maestro Ustad Malang Nejarabi. Hashimi is considered one of the great names of a new generation of Afghan percussionists. This 24-year-old complements Arman’s rubab and delruba playing throughout a mesmerising album that is both accessible and deeply innovating. The rhythmic variations guide us through an original repertory that draws from rich and age-old traditions in a fertile region somewhere between Afghanistan and India.

For it is musicians from northern India who brought some of these songs back to its place of birth in the second half of the 19th century. The nomadic origins of this music are enhanced by these two talented artists whose horizons have never ceased to broaden and diversify. Both have collaborated with a wide variety of musicians from the East and West. In fact, Harman dedicates the CD to Swiss luthier Luc Breton “without whose ingenuity and passion the rubab (Harman) plays would never have existed.”

Daniel Brown

June 15th, 2005