Porya Hatami – Shallow

Tench Records: CD TCH06, about 43 minutes

Tracks: 1) Fen; 2) After The Rain; 3) White Forest

Artist links: https://soundcloud.com/poryahatami & http://poryahatami.bandcamp.com/

There are unknowns and misconceptions when it comes to learning of others in far away lands and different cultures, but we have a universal language: Music.  Music with or without words, music of nature or created with found or built objects.  This is perhaps where we can find common ground and even Peace among us.  We can hope.

Years ago when I was in school I had a friend from Tehran, Iran who sadly I have long since lost touch with (I always marveled at his design work, because it was rooted in ideas and techniques so different from my own), and later I got to know another person from a different family who fled Iran during the 1979 Revolution.  This person’s family was persecuted because of their beliefs (sound familiar?).  We became friends and colleagues in the mid 1980s after he made his way to America via Europe and we have since learned of each other’s heritages (and enjoyed many spirited discussions over the years!).  We all have stories, histories, struggles and desires—we have far more in common with one another than we often think.

Porya Hatami is from Sanandaj, Iran and although we have never met in person, I believe I feel Hatami’s deep and universal desire to reach out and share the experiences of his culture and environment in the hopes of achieving connections we can all appreciate while preserving our regional identities.  With all the turmoil and fear bred by our countries and political establishments, Hatami’s music is a magical beacon of hope and beauty observing the natural world around and more of what binds our humanity instead of what separates us in our beliefs and politics.

Some of Shallow is taken directly from the fens and streams, some from the sky and rain, and some from soft breezes in the trees (as in White Forest), while parts are symbolically reminiscent of those places and experiences (real or imagined).  There is deep sense of warmth in Hatami’s work.  At times it’s so delicate and tender and at others it gently soothes and envelops–allowing one to drift freely into an imagined experience (like where Fen transforms from an environmental to more of an inner dream or even underwater experience at the mid-point of the piece, before returning again to the outdoors—as if from reality to dream and back again).  After The Rain opens as if soft comforting rays of sunshine have entered the morning with a fresh mist still falling from trees or eaves (you can decide).

Shallow is available here: http://www.tenchrec.com/TCH06.html