The Badakhshan Ensemble take their name from the “roof of the world,’ from the Pamir Mountains, the region that divides Tajikistan and Afghanistan. This is devotional music, yet the ensemble mostly work for weddings, where they are hired to create a pop music that is a hybrid between traditional music and more recent melodic, though technologically enhanced music, using synthesizers and bass guitars. Though they also make music for funerals and prayers, including ramadan and the new year, and it’s this form that appears here. Much of their music comes across as quite somber, their texts are from ancient poetry, the vocals incredibly important, often wailing, both mail and female, with a strong regional identity. Some of the pieces are acapella such as the opening piece, yet music plays an important role, there’ groups of large framed drums played in a ritualistic manner, yet it’s the stringed instruments that provide the most impact, shrill fiddles made from tin cans, the tanbur, the setar, a long necked lute that creates a drone reminiscent of the sitar,and numerous other long stringed instruments made from hide and wood with varying sized resonating chamber. It’s music that has remained well and truly outside of the sphere of Western music and has never been tainted by it. You can hear vague links to music from India or Afghanistan, yet in reality you’ve never heard music like this before. The recordings are pristine you can sense the room they’re recording in. There is also extensive information in the liner notes, also a fascinating accompanying dvd detailing this remarkable project to bring these cultural traditions to a wider audience. You can’ imagine getting much more authentic than this.
Bob Baker Fish
