Minden forditás

By recreating themselves, artists transcend their time and place and now Salim has endeavored to overlook the life in his hometown, Tehran, by composing his 6th album, namoWoman. An instrumental avant-prog and prog metal album, namoWoman hires microtonal Persian music influences while introducing a newly constructed language (conlang) named "l3abEl" (pronounced Babel) in which the album’s booklet is written.

Salim is a man of extremities while always seeking reconciliation and harmonization among the most remotely contradictory elements. So developing as a rock/metal artist in a rock alien environment in his hometown or expressing himself by personalized mediums like a conlang of his own, all come natural to his lifestyle. In his 2012 album, Salim has hired an expressionist microtonal approach toward art rock/metal that he describes himself as "empty spaces filled with occasional wild electric guitars and expressive melodies while having oriental dance elements undercover".

About the concepts behind namoWoman composition, Salim says "I have always found the assumption of impossibility an important trick against my mind – a human mind that usually prefers patterned and inductional methods of cognition." Salim adds: "As an artist, creating and experimenting with yet unexplored mental realms has always fascinated me and in order to trick my mind into pushing toward new possibilities, I like experimenting around fundamental concepts like human sexuality. Ideas like considering human sexuality beyond its dualistic nature let me to enter a new mindset and fascinations about worlds of non-Carbon based life, gradually fed my creativity for namoWoman. Maybe I can say this mindset forced my mind to respond on vital levels and challenge its own existence…"

The album cover features Carvaggio’s painting of Medusa, which according to Sigmund Freud is "the supreme talisman who provides the image of castration". Salim says: "namoWoman cover design is a symbolic representation as if the way of transforming dualistic conceptuality passes through castrating one’s sexual identity and reconstructing it anew. All songs in this album appear as perspectives of such creative realms".

Here, Persian music quarter tones are coming in between western music intervals – as Salim has outlined in a music theory article on his website, "Persian Modes: Reading Between the Lines of Western Music". While quarter tones harmonize namoWoman album’s musical language, the l3abEl conlang accompanying its booklet tries to establish the harmony in realm of words.

namoWoman is available in digital and CD format at www.salimworld.com/album-namowoman.htm

Встану я в утро туманное,
Солнце ударит в лицо.
Ты ли, подруга желанная,
Всходишь ко мне на крыльцо?

Настежь ворота тяжелые!
Ветром пахнуло в окно!
Песни такие веселые
Не раздавались давно!

С ними и в утро туманное
Солнце и ветер в лицо!
С ними подруга желанная
Всходит ко мне на крыльцо!

"Sovereign" is an instrumental recitation of Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings) i.e. an extensive Persian epic poem written by Ferdowsi as a collection of Persian mythologies. Here you will find western rock instrumentation with eastern flavor. Some songs, I think, are apt to be adapted for traditional Iranian dance; especially “Sovereign” and “Harem” tracks. Actually, I am looking forward to the choreographic performance adaptations for this work whenever possible. Imagine Iranian "Coffee-house paintings" and belly dance with distorted guitars performing cheerful rhythms... Unusual combination? No, to me that sounds all natural!

As I came to Earth in 1981, I involuntarily came into contact with human race. Except for a few bright encounters, I found the rest, dark and ugly. “Human Encounter” is my diary of these encounters. This album is divided into two categories:

The “dark side” reflects the ugly experiences. I noticed that human beings have a tendency to call everything by a name and misunderstand it later. So I do not care what they may actually mean by a word like "evil"; but no doubt human beings themselves are the main source of terror, pain and destruction on Earth.

The “bright side” reflects the pleasures I encountered in this planet. I say no pleasure happens on Earth without a human medium; so the corresponding songs are dedicated to individual human beings. Of course at first sight, Earth seems physically alluring, but those are only temporary characteristics. The only immortal thing is what a man creates.

Now that I am departing this planet, I will only miss a few people like those I named in the “bright side”... Let the others putrefy in the abyss of time.

"Abrahadabra" is a reflection of my exaggerated personal feelings. It is the first endeavor to my idea of “pictorial rock” - i.e. composition of sounds that recite a sequence of mental pictures. Actually all of these instrumental tracks have a real-life story behind them. There are very vague allusions to these stories in the CD booklet. e.g. “Route” is the story of a death ceremony and recites the mourning over the dead in a way that is done in eastern culture. Or “Told to the Bird” is the story of my own confession to a bunch of flying birds in a ritualistic way... In one sentence, while composing this album, I felt very lovesick, idealist and outraged.

In Ustuqus-al-Uss album I somehow inclined to jazz fusion and classic instrumentation. I think the eastern “blend” still dominates e.g. in “Ustuqus-al-Uss-al-Avvalin” which I think is the most progressive song I have ever composed (The second catchy guitar solo is performed by Pouyan). Some songs are extremely personal e.g. “Naught been I thou” which is an off-beat jazzy tune with unusual dance elements... These songs are my utmost fears and hopes - to a degree that made me mute from communicating by words. And thus they become instrumental sounds...