When harbouring out the last album "SHA", I knew Alan Kushan only "acoustically". We haven't met before 2009, when we experimented losely with a variety of musical fragments in different forms, tones and shades, e.g. after discussing musical greats like Camille Saint-Saëns, Alan laid down a series of ostinatis which I "puzzled to a piece" and that became the frame of "From Mahabad to Saint-Saëns!". Or at another time, we mused about our mutual loving the poetry of Bob Dylan, and Alan laid down vocal premisses of "Mother of Life". Both of these "initial triggers" were later to become "Kushan's subreption": at that point I had no plan or ambition to ever make another CD again)...

When Alan came again in may 2010, we'd swap thoughts and views about the craving for more depth, the dread of superficiality, the common apreciation of humour... emotions... children... focus... subjectivity... hope... objectivity...  technology... horizons... intuition... voyages... humility... experiences... space... gratitude... mountains... conviction... footsteps in the snow... truth... a flock of ravens... questions... the whisper of a silence... absurdity... the fury of a waterfall… doubt... shimmering, warm and bright summernights... contrasts... shivering, cold and white winterdays... déjà vu... perception... desire... loss... love... lies... life... laughter... Nada Brahma... or the suspicion of coercion, swaggering, politicians, party following, institutions, religions, indolence, conformism and hollow rituals...

Alan then wanted to get rid of some thoughts, so I helped him shape up two tunes ("Ridaan" and "Rose Water"). With musical conviction and his charismatic charm Alan reached the a.m. subreption of getting me going for another CD... He provided improvisations and/or incantations upon some of those moduls from 2009, to which I tailored a body (as Alan would have it), some new tunes popped up, too, I threw in 'another side of' and "SHAB TAB" began to take shape with the inventive contributions of a few old Peeni Waali fighters, like
Barbara Dennerlein, the great Rico, Shirley Hofmann, Tobias Morgenstern, Hubert Osterwalder from Gumbo days, Pascal Cuche, Raphael Zweifel, Steve Gregory... and (no - this time Scratch's not on the boat...) Morgan Fisher, Paul Haag and others...

Thus each piece became multi-dimensional, another challenge to use extreme differences and textures. A pandora box full of assets...
May they transcend our vile dread into the ever glowing Peeni Waali, the fire-fly, the beacon of hope, the Shab Tab.

Note that the tune_titles were often given more in context to a "general consesus" or whatever mood we were in while harbouring out the musical 'scenery', as opposed to naming a tune for its 'poetic headline only' (e.g. the title "From Mahabad to St. Saëns" which has absolutely nothing to do with the - great - poem).

Regardless of whether we are able to locate our roots or our origin, the inescapable fact remains that we are here merely for an infinitesimally brief moment in time.
I have been out of Iran for over 30 years and after all this time have, like many fellow Iranians, painfully lost my “inner touch” with Iran. This has been a partial loss, but nevertheless a substantial one:
I am an artist with no homeland but art.

         Nowhere but there would I be,
         But that my heart yearns
         For that which is not and cannot be,
         For there is nowhere, and here am I,
         A Lennon-like nowhere man
         In his nowhere land.

If Iranian music is still not that popular (compared with music of India, South America and Africa), this might be because art has not found its  rightful place among the majority of Iranians themselves, leaving an  impression of “culturelessness”. This is the pathetic upshot of a conflict that began around 14 hundred years ago with the advent of Islam. The horrifying and inhuman situation evident in Iran over the past 30 years or so of Islamo-Fascist oppression and repression has left a miserable impression, to say the least, on the daily life of many Iranians.

As an outcast who does not fit in with the ruthlessly savage realm of Islam,  and in particular Shiite Islam, I remain a solitary, cosmopolitan artist-vagabond with Iranian roots, deprived of a  past heritage, earnestly seeking  his childhood and innocence, or innocence in childhood, or both, or at least a semblance or dream of such an era. The  accumulation of suppressed feelings surges forth from the abyss of my soul and drives me to tell a story through sounds, poetry and composing.

Too many of us have for countless generations been prey to the merciless onslaught of dictatorships and power-hungry megalomaniacs. We still have not found the ultimate civilization where everyone might live under one heaven without lying and killing. Too many of us are bitterly lonely animals with a special power and proclivity for destruction.

Project SHAB-TAB was started almost two years ago. It is a combination of many unresolved thoughts - “Thick Memories” - that have been piling up in my heart and mind.
I have attempted to project many scattered little ideas centred on the related concepts of injustice, religious fanaticism, and ignorance.

Politics and people are inseparable. So are art and politics. One cannot  separate man from philosophy, or eating from sleeping. Singing a song to illustrate the  value of freedom, or singing a song in order to oppose tyrants and dictators, writing a poem or painting a picture in support of the campaign of good against evil in any civilization has a lot to do with politics and political commitment.

I met Fizze through a very dear friend of mine, Roland Schiltknecht, with whom we proposed “SHA”.
I highly value Fizzè’s fantastic ears, his finesse in arranging and colouring soundscape. From him I have learned a great deal. (He will not “take any bullshit from anybody, especially musicians”.) He has been responsible for recording many great musicians over the last 20 years.

Alan Kushan
New York, 2010

If I'd have to summarize/describe Alan, I'd pick up:

Fizzè, spring (march 21st) 2011

Read translations of the lyrics & more info hereafter        

1.   M O T H E R   O F   L I F E

The "Grandmother of Life" which Alan conceived in 2009 was nothing but a drone and a vocal.
It was a long "battle" to convince Alan that a santur was imperative; upon which he delivered an outrageously, furious santur-hurricane. A nifty task, too, to "bend" the initial modal mood with a melodic bassline - and good fun to bombast it up  with a lush string arrangement.
I figured, it'd be interesting to have Barbara Dennerlein's ever so skillful Hammond playing for once as a soundscape, a chill, and then be-flute intro and outro, leaving the middle part more stripped down, more chill and groove with a dark and lowdown/deep accordion solo of maestro Morgenstern.
The prolog and epilog structure triggered the idea of the heartbeat: at the fake end (the second vocal/string-arrangement part) a heartbeat would slow up, announcing an end, but the flute awakens the piece to life again for a short 'encore' after which the heartbeat inevitably making us aware that all things must pass.... sooner or later...
To enhance this prayer-like Zeppelinade (as Raphael, the cello-player circumscribed it), Alan sings a haunting quartertone english (...) and - upon request - threw in some french and german stanzas...
The result may count as a non-commitment to any genre, although not deliberately planned like that...

2.    S H A B    T A B

The "evolution" of this track (originally written by Gijs Levelt and Alec Kopyt from the Amsterdam Klezmer Band) is epic: my younger son (Andri), started playing clarinet and loves those Klezmer- and Balkani melodies (and grooves), so I tailored a cover of a piece we heard at a concert of the AKB in Zürich. When Alan came in 2009, we went through all kind of puzzles of pieces and I thought, why not have him play santur in this "exercise piece" (originally called "Son"), since I had no other "use" except for Andri to learn a few melodies... This santur playing was done out of pure joy and fun to play... (still no "serious" plans)...
Now, when Alan came back in 2010 and we were getting serious about looking for album material, I proposed Alan to voice it with the optic in mind that it should tell about the Peeni Waali, the Beacon of Hope, in order to contrast with the more sombre lyrics (like e.g. "Ridaan").
I showed Alan the original 'Beacon of Hope' poem of Linton Kwesi Johnson upon which Alan came up very quickly with his own 'version', his form of 'translation' and more and more musical ideas made the tune longer and longer. When Barbara Dennerlein came to play on "Mother of Life" I couldn't keep from having her play a solo here, too. After a while I got bored with the polka-style groove and changed that B 3 section into a more jazz like swing and while I was at changing and extending the piece, adding some genuine melodies, changing flute into piccolo parts, add dub sections and old friend Tobias for an accordion stunt, I ventured to do a second half where it'd really rock off with more dance-craze in a kumina/pocomania beat and a long wish popped up again: why wouldn't Rico play on this album, too (he plays on all of my albums ever since 1987)... I liked the idea of making a cover all the more, because fresh attention to other musician's work is simply a reverence to great sound. Alec (the author) and Gijs (the composer of "Son" who even played - trumpet - with Rico) - both being a team in the AKB - were kind enough to ok this 'remake', even if we changed the lyrics of the song. "Son" (the original) means "Dream" and "Shab Tab" (our cover) is another elegy to the firefly, the beacon of hope.
And also: while Andri started to enjoy making movies (writing stories, shooting and cutting), we gathered many footage of the collaborating musicians and put a puzzle together which became the first genuine video-footage on Peeni Waali tactics... (check it out for yourself on YouTube).
Good music creates positive vibrations, don't it?!

tha author (and singer) of "Son" & Andri in Zürich, Mai 20st, 2011)


 

3.   F R O M   M A H A B A D    T O    S A I N T   S A E N S !

The title of this piece has nothing to do with the lyrical content, since this piece originally started of as an instrumental. It was only a year later when we picked up the idea to do a whole cycle of "abrasive material", to voice some of  the instrumental bits and pieces we harboured out so far, that we decided to voice this with that old controversial poem. "Mahabad" is Alan's birthplace in Persia, and the music shows the long way (up to "Saint-Saëns") an open minded spirit  can go... Hence: Mahabad is a place, but St.-Saëns is no Montségur of no sorts...

To this fresh, genuine composition we took inspiration from SaintSaens' "Prélude No. 2". A year later, I added a bass and some orchestration (pulling away from modal mode). Alan then came up with the poem "Morgh-e Sahar", mostly heard on a different, more traditional musical background.
The original musical composition (in Persian: Tasneef or Taraaneh) of the Morning Bird, aka the Dawn Bird or Bird of Dawn, in Persian: مُرغ سحر, was written during Qajar era and it is one of the most notable Poetical Touchstones of MTB since it also portrays the present-day Iran from socio-political standpoints.

Interestingly, we were offered several critics and/or suggestions/hints, that

... [...]... "It is an especially sensitive and "nationalistic" song these days because of the government crackdown in Iran, and also since (the well known Persian singer) Shajarian has taken a very strong position against the government in Iran and has been very outspoken. Now, since the melody has changed significantly, ...[...]... this track will attract a lot of unfavorable comments from Iranians, and the beautiful arrangement and performance will be overshadowed by the focus on the non conventional melody of the  Morgh Sahar lyrics." ...[...]...

The writer then closes with:  "Then again, I could be wrong!"
We sure do apreciate the wit and the honesty of such invaluable "warning".
Another comment notes:

...[...]... I think a lot of people who are fed up with the Iran regime , or any theocracy for that matter, will enjoy "Ridaan"! As you noted yourself , there is always a chance that there will be aggression from radical religious fanatics, but they are in the minority compared to the majority of people who may be offended by "From Mahabad to Saint-Saëns". So basically, if you release both of these tracks, you will potentially be dealing with both nationalists and religious fanatics, and that will limit the Iranian listeners who will connect to and enjoy your art...[...]...

So: for whom I do release the project then, if no Iranian listener would buy it and non-farsi-speakers won't understand the lyrics?
Well... pick up the positive vibrations of the sound, man! That will set your mind ready to dig timeless, considerate thoughtfulness. We are all concerned about wrong regimes and their despots, hence the music doesn't need to be "traditional" in a nationalistic sense. It needs to be attractive enough from the vibrations alone, from the musical content by itself. Because after all:
We - as musicians - do not belong to whatever "elite" or "club" or "group". Remember the narrow-minded folkie fan of Bob Dylan that shouted "Judas",  because Dylan "went electric" and thus "betrayed the genuine protest movement" or whatever!!!...

Imagine one day some super-duper performer/hero will sing “Damn you masters of War” on e.g. the national anthem of  the Republic of Zibnukwana and it becomes a hit for whatever anti-elite of the moment and/or worse: the narrow-minders sanctify it, engrave it in stone...
Let's abolish such aberration immediately and let's cover “Damn you masters of War” upon another melody, be it genuine, or why not on White Christmas or on Balu's dance with Louis Prima...
The elite with "their" version (engraved in stone) will howl betrayal...
How can one “engrave in stone” a piece of music or a piece of poem which the next day might be already redundant, because it´s used by yesterday´s "revolutionaries" who have already become tomorrow´s throat-cutters before dawn? What is revolutionary in stuffing one´s pocket by becoming “cult-” or “status-star” who gained fortune and fame, who “made it”… Made it to where? Gained how much? Achieved what? if any at all...)...
Such message cannot be "posessed". By nobody. By no Dylan, by no Shajarian and/or by no generation because there is no such thing as "one generation". A poet (and his musical penchant) doesn't "own" his message anymore the minute  it's published. The message will/can be used (and - sadly - misused) for any interpretation.

The shocking regime of Iran is not only an "Iranian problem". The parameters that define such a dreaded regime can be found in (too) many other places, so we're all concerned and it's good that such a message goes way past "nationalistic concern". Nationalists are very (very!) suspicious and dangerous, becoming radical very quickly by sheer oportunism. Adolf showed us 75 years ago what nationalism can "achieve" (...), and nobody should ever want such wickedness rise again. Not here, not there, not anywhere.
One dead is always one dead too many. So even if I might be glad that one Bin Laden cannot threaten the world with fear anymore because he doesn't walk the streets anymore, I am not "happy about" his death.
One dead remains one dead too many, forever.
But no word can be crude or suggestive enough to point the finger to the root of narrow-mindedness and its consequences (e.g. misuse of dogmatic religion to the point of crime, unjustice & misery).

Another interesting creation was the 'birth' of

4.   W I D M U N G    A N    (tribute to)   H A F I S

Hubert and I - being neighbours in the village - often get together for a joyful noise and swap ideas. One day, Hubert offered this 7/8 guitar-ostinato.
It immediately triggered an accordion melody in my head and upon that I harboured out some clarinet-lines I wanted to be played by Andri

(Barbara Dennerlein with Andri at home, august 2010).
In the course of working with this endless ostinato, I kept hearing 2 constant notes and realised, these notes were (in German) the "Ha" and the "Fis"...
"Ha"  in german music terminology means the B (the halfnote below the C), and  "Fis" means the F sharp (the half-note above the F).
While listening to it with Alan, after all our reasonings about/of/in relation of zoroastrian philosophy and its great, great exponent, the poet Hafis, I thought that an instrumental perfectly suits the inclusion  on "Shab Tab", even if it was created long before the idea of present album. I had Alan play some keylines and - of course - a "Ha" and a "Fis" from time to time... 
Maybe the musical scale should expand to a "Ru" and "Mi" to play more "Ru" and "Mi" constants and also a "Saa" and a "Di"...

6.   F I V E   B E L L S     O V E R    T O K Y O

Years back - after a teamwork with Morgan Fisher proved to be so smooth, efficient and ending in a beautiful piece (see "11. Mass Medium"), which was originally not planned for this album (because Alan doesn't play on it) - Morgan asked me once: when am I going to play on your next album?.
This remark popped up when "Shab Tab" was long since finished, the mastering and sleeve done. I couldn't help but wonder if this lead was still on, so I sent a "leftover module" of Alan's improvisation (from 2009) to Morgan.
A little time later I received from Tokyo an incredible orchestration and great arrangement on that bare santur improvisation. It took just a little touch up to replace sampled strings with Raphael's genuine cello-playing, a little tweak here and there and I redone the mastering (and sleeve) in order to offer this beautiful piece. I'm very flattered to host some of Morgan's genuine old analog vintage keyboards rarities (c.f. the Pianoline) which I left - of course - totally un-mixed, uncluttered from modern 'nice-up tools'...

7.   S H A B     N A M

Info on this one to follow soon...

8.   B U D D A H    O N    T H E    F R O G S

As with "Mother of Life", Alan cast a first draw in 2009 with a sole vocal on nothing but a temporary drone. But the force of the vocal nuances dividing the different parts, there was no need to 'undermine' the different sections of the piece with a corresponding orchestral arrangement such as in "Mother of Love". Alan still wanted more "body" for the tune, so I offered my 'symphony of frogs', a piece that I assembled back in 1981 (...) for an aural visuality piece on "Manoeuvres d'Automne".  Add a minimal santur, a bordun of 4 alphorn  by Paul Haag's Horns, a little acordion touch-up/make-up and enjoy this mantra on the frogs...
I also use the frog-symphony to perform a chill-out live-piece with guitarist Osterwalder. It is astonishing how the frogs seem to perfectly 'catch up' with moods, tonalities and even structures of a piece.

Those of lascivious mind and extravagant circumstance shall not pass from the world of wisdom.
 (Hafiz).

9.   R I D A A N

The truth might be an offense, but it is no sin. It can differ very much from the reality we perceive and which affects us...
We owe it to music to make good music in the first place. If music's to be with lyrics, then words ought to be as deep as the music...
So we won't change the course of “Shab Tab”, so long we remain decent and not provocative to a point of being self-destructive or getting  unpolitically non-correct…
When Alan came here again in may 2010 for a 2 months stay to check out other possibilities (e.g. to settle down here, and/or other issues), he wanted to get rid of some thoughts and themes in his head concerning his existential trauma of neither having a cultural past (he left an Iran than doesn't allow a modern view of its culture) nor cultural future (he lives temporarily in New York, i.g. in a country that has a cultural future only by synthesizing all its theft, robbery and dreaded colonialism of the past into... into what? Into a new world order?...). Hence he churned out "Ridaan" in a flabbergasting wrath and utter concern. During this same "output", there was yet another piece ("Rose Water") more or less in the same "angry" vein/way, but due to its poorer musical body (compared to the rest) I decided to drop 'Rose Water' for the time being. However, its lyrical content is strong and biting all the same, which is why you'll find it still in the lyrics/translations.
But these two pieces became the initial spark to shape a whole collection of pieces from those loose pieces laid down a year before plus fresh material.

10.   N O U V E L L E    C U I S I N E     O R I E N T A L E

Swapping thoughts about using micro-tonal scales (i.e. listening to Wendy Carlos' "Beauty in the Beast"), I dug out my old milkpots from "Kulu Hatha Mamnua" days and Alan mused that the milkpot-pattern of the '81 recording "Cuisine", was an Indian rag !
I asked him to tune the santur exactly to the intervals of three milkpots and then 'accompany' that tune. It was only minutes before Alan came up with some lyrics and yet another facet joined the puzzle of seemingly disparate tunes, all linked by the only matter: sound. The rest is merely rythm' and the worldly aspects may be words...

11.   M A S S   M E D I U M

And as history slips out of view bated breath for the nine o'clock news
reassembled right before your very eyes: innuendo rumour and lies
Endless fun and games steal a headline, name some names
we're so proud that our press feel so free to manipulate them you and me
And as each campaign begins to absolve us of our sins
I see freedom sold by the yard it's so easy why make it hard?

written by Robert Wyatt, this (instrumental) cover-version reflects some of our own observations, worries & hopes. All the more since Wyatt's political views and revolutionary stance override themes of repression of the working classes, alienation, snobbery and individual liberty. Wyatt even made a conscious effort to produce "un-misusable music" – music where any possible political ambiguity was removed so that it would have to be rejected by anyone promoting corrupt Western culture.
We felt this "side-step" particularily matching to the rest of the lyrics on this collection of pieces. Originally I shaped it in collaboration with the late Heinz Vetsch. Morgan Fisher did the keyboards and voiced it for us, but I chose this instrumental version for "Shab Tab". I'm convinced the vocal version will find its way onto a different context when the time is right, thus taking advantage to hear this great rendering again...

The intro ("L'internationale") was written in Paris, in June of 1871 by Eugène Pottier (1816 - 1887). He was a member of the International and of the Central Committee of the Commune. He was condemned to death in May of 1873, but sentence was never carried out as he took refuge in America. The song was published in Chants Révolutionnaires (1887), and dedicated to Gustave Lefrançais, member of the Commune.

Arise, you prisoners of starvation!
Arise, you wretched of the earth!
For justice thunders condemnation.
A better world's in birth.
No more tradition's chains shall bind us.
Arise, you slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations.
We have been naught, we shall be all.
'Tis the final conflict;
Let each stand in his place.
The international working class
Shall be the human race.

However, from all the different things we tried out, this batch of tunes is only a small glimpse into our universe, created for this ocasion...
One morning in July we went to the top of a mountain in the alps (2'456 m. above sea level)

 

at 5 in the morning and Alan played this beautiful piece while the sun was rising!

And there was numerous other very pleasant musical moments like Alan playing at a clarinet audition for kids or us just sit in and ooooohhhhhhm a bit with friend Peter Gisler... nothing to be released, really, but pleasant enough to participate if you like a good vibe...

Anyway... we hope you'll be listening still by the time "Peeni Waali" will light you up!...

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