“Weasels and Warcries” introduction and afternote at University of Oxford

An excerpt from “An evening of Persian hip hop and alternative music” at Nissan Lecture Theatre at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. As part of the presentation and Q&A session with Reveal, Hichkas and Ash Koosha on June 2nd, 2011. Weasels and Warcries was played along with an introductory text and an afternote that was written by me to compliment the listening experience which was read by Mehrak Golestan.

Introduction:

Well, I don’t like categorizing but to make this abstract note a bit more simple, I’d better start like this. In my opinion, for every piece of music we can try to envision a border surrounding it in a specific aspect called “the goal of music”.  At one end of this spectrum we have “touch the feelings then catch the thoughts” while at the other end we have  ”touch the thoughts then catch the feelings”. For example a music which is specifically tailored to clubs or parties, in the first place tries to touch the feelings by using simple energizing rhythms which everyone can easily follow and uses lyrics about obvious/basic needs which most people can relate to, in order to make them feel excited very quickly to the point that the feelings take over the thoughts and the brain follows the feelings and we dance. Such music is closer to the “touch the feelings” end. On the other hand, we have for example a lyrical hiphop track which criticizes the authorities in regards to a specific social problem. Such an example would in the first place touch your thoughts and make you think and then you may find you have resulting feelings which are basically the side effects of your thoughts. Obviously there can be no music which exists absolutely at one the end of this spectrum and in practice each piece of music uses both methods simultaneously by using different tools to capture the listeners ear. Some catch more feelings and less thought while others are the opposite. I’m not advocating or devaluing anything here. We have lots of great classics on the both sides of the spectrum that must be given their due respect as proper pieces of art no matter what their objective or goal may be. I’ve made both kinds and I accept any kind of project which upholds its own artistic standard. No matter what the goal is. But my own personal passion is making experimental instrumental contemporary music. I love experimental because I honestly believe that we have had enough of different versions of most typical categorized music. We all know verse-chorus. We know tons of loops. We’ve all heard different arrangements of a 4/4 drum. So why not break all these clichés and why not make new abstract structures? Why not play middle eastern traditional harmonies with western instruments fused together in abstract electronic music? I truly feel like I am spending my time more usefully when I’m doing an experimental project, even though it’s much harder and even though most of the time producing a track typical to a known genre brings more joy, I cannot help but feel that after finishing an experimental project I have in someway made a contribution to the advancement of art itself. By instrumental I mean a music without any language or words, or using even the human voice as an instrument not a tool of sending a direct message via poetry. And even though I may sound bigoted about music, I truly do believe that words add little or no musical value to music itself even if they do add literary or conceptual values. Another negative point regarding lyrics is that it limits the audience to a specific group of people who can understand the said dialect whereas music does not have these limits as any human being can feel a melody. By contemporary, I prefer to be closer to the “thoughts” end of the spectrum I was talking about. Even if most of the time it’s much harder to catch thoughts with only the music and not any words. But I want my music to have something more than music at its heart, because I’ve personally experienced times when a deep-enough concept underlies the music, at such times it will lead you into better and deeper places which you may not otherwise experience. And also the structure of the whole thing will be based on a specific concept which can be interpreted by different brains in different aspects. Even if there is not a single person who catches the same thought you had, that is ok as it is meant to be a foundation for a concept so each can build their own on it and that also captures the limitless power of music. To sum things up, we have a Persian idiom which says “what comes from ones heart, will find its way to land on the heart of another”. 

Weasels and Warcries is one of my experimental personal solo projects that I recorded and produced in the space of a month at my atelier. Using upright piano, violin, Pro Tools and Reason. All performance, programming, arranging, production, engineering, mix engineering and artwork has been done by myself in my atelier at Cité des Arts in Paris. Mastering performed by  Joe Dochtermann at his studio in Berlin. Please pay attention to the point that It’s a trippy music so it needs to be followed otherwise you may find yourself in a bunch of complex sounds. This is a piece of music that I would place closer to the thoughts end of the spectrum. So interpret it how you will and build your own stories on it. I’ll tell you mine after.

Afternote:

Hope you had an interesting experience. 

First of all I have to remind again that the stories I’m about to tell you are just my way of seeing Weasels and Warcries, yours may be much better so don’t forget what you yourself have built and that you can add more details to your story by listening again. 

Generally Weasels and Warcries contains two different aspects to me. One is a social concept and the other is the individual aspect. 

I will start with the social one. Basically I think that we as human beings may never get along with each other in harmony and peacefully due to the fact that people are incapable of controlling their power when they have too much of it. The story is about the all time battle between the majority and the minority. In my opinion the following is how the story fits the music you have just heard:
Imagine there is a majority who is putting pressure on the minority. Most of the times in the beginning of such situations some rebel intellectuals from the minority will start protesting sooner than the others. Unfortunately most of the time the majority manages to shut them up very soon. Subsequently, those rebel intellectuals who usually are the best leaders, must be sacrificed so that the minority and some of the majority may be forced to face the bitter reality of inequality. This will make the majority weaker and the minority stronger. This thing will continue until the point that the minority will eventually take control of the society and they in turn literally become the majority. But again, on the other side we have a new minority which is now under the pressure of the new majority. So we are actually back at the first square again. And this loop continues on and on and will continue to do so because as long as human beings are still stupid enough to believe that there are higher beliefs than the fact that we are all humans no matter our nationality, race or religion, there will always exist a majority and a minority. And when we cannot control our unnecessarily vast power and our greed, the majority will always somehow put pressure on the minority for no reason. You can see the examples of what I’m trying to say everyday, no matter where you live. 

The individual aspect of this music to me is:
Imagine a person who is sad about himself and attempts to change the situation around himself so that he may feel better because he thinks he’s sad because his life is sad, not knowing that the atmosphere doesn’t change anything if you are sad inside. So on this music I imagined a specific story line of such a persons case. The main character of my story who is not happy and sees everything around himself as darkness, starts trying to change the atmosphere. He even is able to achieve his objectives and gathers all the materials necessary to make the happiest atmosphere he could have imagined only to find that he is still sad, even though all the atmosphere around him shouts happiness at him. He may now understand that the problem is something else, something inside himself, that first you have to be happy with yourself and then you can be happy anywhere, anytime, anyhow. So our main character is now back at the same old sad place even after all his efforts and subsequent successes. He has to start again, but this time to build himself. 

So these were my understandings and pictures. Again, yours may be much better.