Various Artists

Shoor Music from Iran, Iraq & Lebanon

Genre: FOLK / ROOTS

Tape

Boomkat Product Review:

Athens’ inimitable Heat Crimes label pitch into the febrile, religious rituals of Shoor Music from Iran, Iraq & Lebanon with a truly astonishing 90 minute tape of ethnomusicology for the ages. What a way to start their 3rd year of releases, after a slew of AOTY zingers by Aeson Zervas, The Ephemeron Loop (Gretchen Aury ov Tristwch Y Fenywod), DJ Niraha, Mariam Rezaei et al.

Literally unlike anything we’ve ever heard, Shoor music is primarily practiced during religious observances, offering a powerfully rhythmic exhortation of chest beating pulses that produce almost throat singing overtones under melodic chants without instrumental accompaniment, which in the modern day has been adapted with more complex rhythmic intensity. Just watch any of the vids on YouTube and the effect is clearly, transcendently immediate, as you’ll hear in this revelatory tape put together by Heat Crimes - one of our favourite labels in the world right now.

For 90 minutes the massed crowd are synchronised in a way that our Northern European minds respectfully compare with the effect of Gaelic Psalm singing gone turbo. Propelled by a chant leader and partner, the sound really comes into its own in massed situations where the sound of myriad men thumping chests produces a hypnotic, devotional energy sustained in a manner that also no doubt recalls techno in the Western world. That effect is most apparent on the A-side of the tape, whilst the B-side introduces a more syncopated style of offbeat pulse tempered between throatier growls and delayed melodic phrasing with tones most comparable to beatboxing.

The whole thing is a total mind-melt, utterly crucial listening for anyone with a thing for intensity and passion, and a curious ear.

Tape (2)