Title: The Rain
Artist: Ghazal
Genre: Classical/World Fusion
Artist Reaction: Never heard of them so shrug
Genre Reaction: Not at all bad. I like classical and I can certainly dig some world music
Familiarity: Zero
Suggested by: grindy
A Little Background: Very little really that I can dig up. Ghazal appears to be a three-man outfit, helmed by Kayhan Kalhor, who plays something called a kamencheh, which from the picture appears to be a cross between a lyre and a violin, and is an Iranian traditional instrument, Shujaat Khan, who plays the sitar and Swapan Chadhuri, who plays the tabla. Their style is said to be a blend of Indian and Persian classical music.
Expectations: Not really sure, but this could be at least a Like I hope.
Overview: Their fourth album,
The Rain was actually nominated for a World Music Grammy in 2004. Oddly enough, despite the above, tabla player is listed as Sandeep Das, so perhaps a lineup change for this album? It only has three tracks in all, but none of them run for less than fifteen minutes, so the album still comes out at around 53 minutes in total.
Fire: The unmistakable sound of a sitar, always, in my mind, synonymous with Indian and Eastern countries like that is joined by what sounds like a violin, and therefore I’m assuming this is the first we hear of the kamencheh. For someone completely unversed in this kind of music the traditional images appear in my mind, of deserts and camels and rolling dunes and dudes swathed in white flowing robes with dark, piercing eyes, the sun a burning orb in the clear, metal-blue sky above. Yurts and oases are other images, all I’m sure very stereotypical, but this is what comes into my mind. Very relaxed and gentle as it begins, a certain shimmering in the music which reminds me of snake charmers (stereotype 101, I know) but one thing certainly emerges very early, and that is that these guys are not just adept on their instruments, they’re masters of them.
Vocal now comes in, very low and I must say soothing, almost a lullaby, gentle and reassuring. This is by now almost five minutes into the eighteen-minute opening track. Some great interplay now between the instruments, the tabla coming more into the mix, vocals dropping out for the moment. That kamencheh is just a beautiful instrument I must say, and the sitar complements it so well. I don’t think we’re about to get any shredding, but the guys can make both sitar and kamencheh rock when they want to. A little more vocal in the tenth minute - these guys are definitely believers in the axiom of less is more, at least when it comes to vocals; Shujaat Khan knows just when to sing and when to let the music do the talking - then we’re off on a pretty frenetic instrumental call-and-response between sitar and kamencheh, with the tabla looking on wisely.
Three paragraphs, and only the first track? You’d better believe it! This album does not deserve a few pithy lines, and in fact I doubt that would even be possible. It’s quite likely that I will end up writing as much as, or even more than I wrote for Beefheart’s thirty-odd tracks as I do for these three epics. The soundscapes these lads weave between them are nothing less than spellbinding, and to draw on yet another cliche, they have the power to transport you to a foreign land and make you feel instantly at home there. Really speeding up now as we head into the final few minutes, and by Allah it doesn’t seem like it’s been eighteen! Big finish and we’re onto track two. Hey, sounds like that track was live! Maybe all of this album is.
Dawn: Kamencheh opens this one on a low, mournful sequence as the rest of the instruments hold back for now. This is the shortest (!) track, at just seconds under fifteen minutes, and now the sitar is taking over, running off a kind of Bachesque fugue there, then quieting right back down again as the kamencheh comes in hard (ooer!) and re-establishes its mastery and domination of the track. If you’re wondering why I’m referring to the instruments and not the musicians, there’s a very good reason: I’m a lazy bastard and don’t want to keep writing out those Indian names!
Sitar now pushing kamencheh to one side and saying “I’ll take this one, son,” and doing a hell of a good job on it. To be perfectly honest, though they’re probably there I can’t hear much of the tabla and this piece seems almost percussion-free so far, which is the sixth min - oh I hear it now. Very hollow and almost like tapping on metal pipes or something, and now the singing begins, again very low and soft, almost muttered or hummed before it picks up in strength a little.
This is without doubt beautiful, ethereal, almost spiritual music, and I think though it’s a little hard to review it, it’s certainly going to be harder to stop listening to it. To paraphrase Monty Burns: is all Persian music this wonderful? And again it appears to be live, though you can only tell by the applause (very much deserved) at the end. Of course, it’s not the kind of music where you would expect to have people shouting and whistling and clapping. Calls of “Yeah!” or “Play Eternity!” would not, I think, go down well in this environment.
Eternity: Opened this time on the sitar, though it doesn’t take long for the kamencheh to join in. This is in fact the longest on the album, almost twenty minutes long. All the instruments coming together really well here, but so far (six minutes and counting) no vocals. And just as I typed that someone spoke. Just a word I think. Still no singing yet. A more uptempo piece this, I feel, kind of bouncy and joyous whereas the last two have been more restrained and kind of elegant, a real sense of peace and tranquility about them. There’s that voice again. If this is, like the other two tracks, live, then maybe they’re just talking to each other occasionally as they play?
Twelve minutes now and still no vocal. I’m not complaining; not that the vocal is unwelcome, but the music is just so damn good that it survives on its own. Singing is a great bonus, but I’ll take this. And it’s turning out to be the best track too. Out of three, I know that’s not saying much, but given the length of each track and how absolutely not a second of either even came close to sucking, I think that it is quite an achievement. As we head into the seventeenth minute I feel it’s safe to assume there will be no singing on this track. Stunningly superb even so. A real workout for the guys: bet they were sweating after that. Rain indeed!
Conclusion: Talk about someone opening your eyes! For some reason I assumed grindy’s selection would be black metal or noise rock or experimental or some mad thing. I was certainly relieved when I read who Ghazal are, but there was still an element of maybe, will this be boring? Hell no! Best pick so far. I know there’ve only been two, and the first I already knew of, but top marks g-man!
So, Love or Hate? Total
True Love here.