Migration

This collaboration between violinist Keyavash Nouari and electronic musician Shahrokh Yadegari makes for fascinating listening. Nourai improvises in the Persian tradition. But these are structured, rather than completely free, extemporizations, in the mode of Avaz Esfahan. Yadegari uses a Lila, a computer/musical instrument that is controlled by the operator to give loop, delay, ring modulation and feedback. It samples and transforms what the violinist plays, then plays it back to the violinist to spur further improvisation. It's not a million miles from what Fripp & Eno were doing in the '70s, merely updated and with a different framework. There's some magnificent playing here, not in a bravura fashion, but thoughtfully, layer adding on layer to create something like a cathedral of beauty. It's not particularly linear, the final sound being a product of cut and paste, but these meditations (which is essentially what they are) pull the listener along through intricate webs of sound. A fascinating record.