Search - Salar Aghili, Ensemble Dastan :: Endless Ocean

An Exciting Plunge into Mystical Music

Dr. Debra Jan Bibel | Oakland, CA USA | 03/12/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you seek an excellent example of traditional Persian music with contemporary sensitivity, an album that will grip you and mesmerize you, whose performance is exciting and intense, then look no further than The Endless Ocean by the Dastan Ensemble, with vocalist Salar Aghili. Finely recorded in an Irani studio in 2006, this album consists of ghazals, poems, by the ancient mystics Attar, Rumi, and Hafiz, and also the contemporary poet Sahyeh. The compositions and improvisations, while modern, reach back to medieval times. The final track is especially powerful, leaving you almost breathless. The members of the Ensemble change over the years, and for this recording we hear Said Farajpoory, who plays the kamancheh spike fiddle, Hamid Motebassem on tar lute, Hossein Behroozi-Nia performing on barbat, an oudlike lute, and Behnam Samani and Pejman Hadadi on percussion, among which are the daf frame drum, the dammam cylindrical drum, and the tonbak, an unusual ceramic beaker drum. Aghili's vocal style is akin to that of his teachers, Ta'rif and Shadjarian (the vocalist of the recent group "Masters of Persian Music"), which is to say, grand. Need I say more? Persian music has become increasing popular in the West; it is good to get beyond geopolitics to appreciate other cultures and, after all, spiritual musicians are without borders."