Coldünya with Alim Qasımov — Oyanış

Surfing the seas of Azeri piracy I came across this oddity. A mixture of traditional muğam with almost as traditional (neo) prog. The result, as one can figure, is far from traditional.

First there's muğam music, a complex musical tradition, full of microtonal and rhythmic characteristics to which our equal-tempered 12-tone system and even the so-called complexity of prog pale in comparison. When I first heard Alim Qasımov I wasn't convinced. It seemed alien and rather serious, also his powerful voice and performance is not something exactly 'easy listening', even though I heard my share of oriental musics (Turkish primarily). Then I discovered in Persian popular music, starting easy with the delightful Googoosh and Omid, moving on to less palatable artists (to western ears) like Homeyra, Ahdieh and Hayedeh. The latter being a vocal powerhouse that I fell in love with quite easily, also - or even specifically - the more classical songs. After this immersion coming back to Qasımov changed a lot. I can relate to his art much more than before, just by training myself (made easy by the excellent artists mentioned above).

Then there's Coldünya, I don't know much about them and I couldn't find much either. I found a few songs which are varying very much in quality and when I first listened to Oyanış I wasn't convinced yet. As distant as the two styles seem on paper, they didn't seem to gel in practice either. Actually, on first listen I was kind of baffled, knocked off my feet, by the strange mix as well as the rather dense nature of it. But it kept calling my name, and funny enough it's actually the muğam that finally won me over. After the intro Şikayət proverbial hell breaks loose. Qasımov says you have to be on fire when performing and this track is burning hot. Actually, it's rather intimidating. There's a lot happening at once, the full rockband with keyboards plus setar, tar, kemanche and Qasımov's soaring voice. After a few spins you'll find it's dense but the two styles are also meticulously interwoven. Dağların Başı leans more towards traditional and is a bit more open. Funny is that Alim at some point reminds me of Rush's Geddy Lee. It's followed by Mehriban Olaq the second stunner, especially the kemanche solo literally rips your heart out (if you hadn't lost it already). The song is more ballad-like, but still powerful. Yarım more calmly closes the EP.

In the hands of any western prog band this probably would have been a disaster (I haven't heard what Jeff Buckley apparently did with Qasımov), even though I wouldn't have put all my money on Coldünya either based on the five songs I heard by them. But I think that because of the shared background they are more likely to adapt to muğam's intricacies than any not born and raised in the Azeri tradition. It started out as a curious and even questionable idea, but after a lot of spins I've become rather possessed by this intense EP. So it's not some odd concoction for the sake of 'world music' but it's Album Of The Month.