It would be easy to describe Santur & Kamancheh for Electronics as an encounter between Iranian classical instruments and electroacoustic music. Fortunately, that is not what this album is about. Rather than treating tradition and experimentation as opposing worlds, Maryam Rahmani & David Esser allow them to coexist within the same acoustic space. The santur and kamancheh are never presented as historical artefacts awaiting electronic transformation. Instead, electronics become another way of listening to them.
From the opening “Glass Tower,” one has the impression that the listener has been placed inside the instruments themselves. Contact microphones, geophones and live processing reveal vibrations that normally remain hidden:…

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