My Instrument: Cätlin Mägi and her Parmupill

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.



When most musicians play a concert, they usually stick to one instrument, maybe two or three if they’re multi-instrumentalists. When Cätlin Mägi takes to the stage, she brings no fewer than 50: all different versions of the Estonian parmupill.

The parmupill is a jaw harp: a metal tongue held in a steel frame that is plucked using the mouth as a soundbox. The instrument has existed in Estonia since at least the 13th century, and was once a staple accompaniment to folk dance parties. Over time, it was replaced by louder and more fashionable instruments such as the fiddle and accordion, and the traditional style of playing – where the player creates an overtone melody by changing the shape of their mouth and throat – was lost. Its death knell came during Soviet rule. “In Russian times, we couldn’t have our own traditional music,” Mägi explains. “They took it to the stages and they only played a small amount of tunes, so it changed. The village people didn’t play it because it just was not familiar to them anymore.” As the folk music and dances became standardised, so did the instrumentation, and the parmupill survived only as a novelty.

It was in Norway, during her time as an exchange student, that Mägi discovered a thriving jaw harp tradition. “The old players there knew how to get the clear melody from the jaw harp, so I studied with them. When I came back to Estonia I thought, maybe we had the same technique in our history? I went to the archives and suddenly there were 20 old recordings that had the same clarity of melody!” The most recent of those recordings was from 1938; that style of playing had not been heard in Estonia for more than half a century. Now, through her research as a scholar, her performances as a musician and her teaching as the head of folk music at the famous Viljandi Culture Academy, Mägi has pioneered the resurrection of this once lost technique. When it comes to the parmupill, she literally wrote the book: Eesti Parmupill / Estonian Jew’s Harp was published in 2011.

But why do her gigs involve 50 parmupills? Well, she doesn’t play them all individually. Using specialised clamps, she stacks several instruments together to create ‘courses.’ Each parmupill in a course twangs a different note, and she can easily swap between them as she plays. That way, she changes the pitch of the drone as well as the overtone harmonics, meaning that she can play a bassline and a melody simultaneously. “When I make my music, I have to have exactly the right pitches ready for every tune. I can’t make a course during a concert, it takes too much time, so I can’t just have one harp for each note. I have 20 ‘A’ harps at home because I have to spread them out – that’s why I have so many!”

When she performs, Mägi’s 50 parmupills are transformed into more than just metallic twangs and whistling overtones. Their traditional West Estonian repertoire is glitched and warped through electronics: distortions, echoes, delays and loops turn their sound into a vast monster machine – and it helps that jaw harps already sound inherently electronic. Most impressive is the octave pedal, which turns the reediness of the parmupill into a rumbling, powerful bass over which folk songs and melodies can play.

Mägi is not content with reviving the techniques of playing the instrument, she’s making new methods and contexts for the parmupill to flourish in modern musical spheres. EDM, contemporary jazz and traditional folk music; state-of-the-art gadgetry and 50 ancient instruments coming together as one. A wondrous collaboration of old and new made from just two pieces of twisted metal.


Photo: Cätlin Mägi live at WOMEX 19, by Jacob Crawfurd.

Ann O’aro - Longoz

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Ann O’aro
Longoz
Cobalt/Buda Musique (59 mins)

A brooding trombone blaring single, mournful tones; then, on top, a voice made of silk and smoke conjures an image of a deserted jazz club in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And what a voice it is. From the first moments of this album’s title-track opener, you can tell you’re about to be stunned.

To describe Ann O’aro’s music as maloya would perhaps be incorrect, but it’s undeniable that La Réunion’s iconic creole style is deeply embedded in its heart. She takes maloya’s bluesiest elements and most passionate rhythms to inform a stark, emotional jazz that also draws on ideas of bal-musette, waltz, sega and zouk. Such intensity is especially impressive when the ensemble only ever expands to a trio of O’aro on vocals, Teddy Doris on trombone and Bino Waro (son of Danyèl) on percussion.

While O’aro’s voice and music are hauntingly beautiful, her lyrics are another matter. Sung mostly in Creole, they reflect and examine her own trauma as a survivor of child abuse and incest. They make for important but difficult listening. Powerful and harrowing, delicate, sad, angry and utterly beguiling – Longoz is an album that will stay in the ears, mind and stereo for a long time.

Rüstəm Quliyev - Azerbaijani Gitara

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Rüstəm Quliyev
Azerbaijani Gitara
Bongo Joe (44 mins)

As well as a hot contender for this year’s Most Charmingly Naff Cover Photo award, the inside of this album is just as fun and fascinating as what’s on the outside.

This career retrospective introduces the world to the late Rüstəm Quliyev, the electric guitarist who set the standard for open-eared instrumental pop in Azerbaijan. He developed his own sound from his first instrument, the tar (hourglass-shaped long-necked lute): with fast tremolo picking and melodies played up and down a single string, Quliyev gives the electric guitar a distinctive Azeri flair. Only ever backed by a keyboard and a drum machine, the retro timbres accompany Quliyev through the music of Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan and India, and provide a neat disco shimmy while they’re at it.

It’s all good stuff here, but the highlights come when Quliyev points his plectrum towards traditional repertoire: ‘Əfqan Musiqisi’ is a particular treat based on Afghan folk melodies, and ‘Yanıq Kərəmi’ has a compelling two-and-a-half minute introduction before he kicks it up a notch for some fully-distorted twang, all derived from the music of Azerbaijan’s aşıq bards.

If you’ve been looking for the centre of that Venn diagram between Bahram Mansurov, Dick Dale and Omar Souleyman, you’ve found the perfect album.

Tune In - Atlas

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 164, January/February 2021.

Tune In
Atlas
Tune In Crew (29 mins)

French production duo (and brothers) Harry and Xavier Veynand have chosen an appropriate title for their first album: it feels like a good chunk of the world’s music is represented across its eight fully-instrumental tracks.

In just the opener, ‘Stella Marina’, one can discern elements of reggae, salsa, Afrobeat, Ethiojazz and something of a Manu Chao-meets-Amadou & Mariam vibe, all within a nest of cool funk. The rest of the album carries on in a similar fashion. Among lots of dub and synthedelic grooves there are blues licks, Indian and Arabic rhythms, chicha, mambo, Beatlesy raga-rock, and much more besides. A recurring focus is on assouf, the guitar sound pioneered by Tinariwen; Tune In’s version works well paired with the dub production, but lacks the desert isolation that makes the style so intoxicating in Tuareg hands.

There are lots of good ideas here, but perhaps there are just too many. Fitting it all into less than half an hour gives the effect of being bombarded by global influences in a way that can get a bit exhausting after a while. A debut of enjoyable tracks, but best appreciated in small doses.

Hossein Alizadeh and Rembrandt Trio - Same Self, Same Silence - Liner Notes

First published as liner notes to Hossein Alizadeh and Rembrandt Trio’s album Same Self, Same Silence (Just Listen Records, 2020).



These are sounds of the ancient and the modern.

Echoes of jazz solidify among the chromatics of the dastgāh, adorned by ornaments both Persian and Baroque.

Musical instruments that were nearly lost to history resonate with those that are the first of their kind.

The art music of three continents swirl together as sweet-scented vapour and become one.

Hossein Alizadeh

Few musicians in contemporary Iran are as respected as Hossein Alizadeh. He is the leading master of Persian lutes: the tar (the hourglass-shaped lute), the setar (a long-necked lute with variants across Central Asia and the Middle East), and, as you can hear on Same Self, Same Silence, the shurangiz, an instrument built to his own specifications that serves as a midpoint between the two.

Born in Tehran in 1950 to mixed Persian-Azeri parentage, Alizadeh quickly became immersed in the tradition of musiqi-e assil – the classical music of Iran that can be traced back many centuries. He became a professional musician aged just 15, and was soon noted for his powerful yet delicate performance style and his virtuosity in improvisation within the classical structures.

Aside from strict interpretations of classical and traditional music, Alizadeh has also been at the forefront of innovative music in Iran, and has expanded the possibilities of what is thinkable within the realms of Persian music. He has been particularly celebrated as a composer, with notable works including a concerto for ney (end-blown reed flute) and string orchestra entitled NayNava (1983) and scores for the films Gabbeh (1996) and Turtles Can Fly (2004).

Hossein Alizadeh is without a doubt one of the most important figures in the field of art music in Iran and beyond – as an educator, as a composer, as an exponent of old traditions and new talent and, foremost, as a true master in his performance of Persian classical music.

Rembrandt Trio

The Rembrandt Trio, from the Netherlands, are masters of their own classical traditions. At first glance, they appear to have the set-up of a standard jazz piano trio – piano, double bass and drums. But look closer. Rembrandt Frerichs’ piano is actually a fortepiano, built to the specifications of Mozart’s own instrument from 1790, or else an antique harmonium, bridging the gap between Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Tony Overwater’s double bass is a violone, a bass viol with six strings and frets. Vinsent Planjer’s drums are a whisper kit, a unique personal curation of drums and percussion from across time and geography.

Fine jazz players each, but together, their music represents a journey to a different sound. When they play together, influences abound and their historical instruments reflect an alternative vision of contemporary jazz. They edge towards the unattainable third stream, blurring European classical and jazz styles to render both nearly meaningless. J.S. Bach, Keith Jarrett, Claude Debussy, Ornette Coleman: these legacies are inextricable in the music of the Rembrandt Trio.

And their boundaries don’t stop at jazz or European art music. The strings of Frerichs’ fortepiano connect their player not only with 18th century Vienna, but also with the players of the Arabic qanun (plucked zither) and the Persian and Hindustani santur (hammered dulcimer). The music of the Middle East becomes integral to the trio’s sound, whether through the strains of an Arabic maqam scale, a suggestion of an iqa’ rhythm, or through direct work with celebrated Iranian artists such as Kayhan Kalhor, Mahsa Vahdat… and Hossain Alizadeh.

The music

Together, Hossein Alizadeh, Rembrandt Frerichs, Tony Overwater and Vinsent Planjer represent three art music traditions – Persian, European and jazz – and make from them a unified creation.

Same Self, Same Silence is an exploration of Nava, one of the seven principle dastgāhs – or modal systems – in Persian classical music. A dastgāh is defined by a particular set of notes, and so each has its own distinct emotional colour and personality. Nava is one of the oldest in the dastgāh system, known for its serenity and the meditative qualities it imbues. Yet, it remains among the least performed in the Persian repertoire.

Each piece here uses Nava as its base, anchoring the music solidly in the classical tradition. Most of the pieces are based on gushehs, short canonical melodic fragments upon which ideas can take flight; others are specially composed by Alizadeh; and still others are solo improvisations on the dastgāh from Alizadeh and Frerichs.

The serenity embodied by Nava can also be heard in the performances themselves. Alizadeh and the Rembrandt Trio first met in 2016, and performed together for the first time that same year at the November Music festival in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. When recording this album, Alizadeh said “I’ve known these guys for a year now and I already feel we have known each other for fifty years, because we have grown so close musically so fast.” This collaborative closeness gives the ensemble a relaxed enjoyment that can be heard clearly in the music, a feeling that only adds to the emotional depth on display.

To make Same Self, Same Silence, each musician has adapted their playing to the others’. Musical minds are tuned to each other’s thinking, and musical instruments are re-tuned to ring in sympathy with another culture – Nava is a dastgāh that requires the use of quarter-tones not usually found in European music. This reorientation allows each musician to approach on an equal footing, to build new sonic possibilities. “When we start to play,” says Alizadeh, “we become like sculptors who create a shape on stage and, bit by bit, we carve out a sculpture.”

Where else could this music be heard than the here-and-now? The jangling buzz of the shurangiz complements the dampened tones of the fortepiano; rhythms from Iran played on a whisper kit are elaborated on the violone; improvisations glide seamlessly between Asia, Europe and America. Classical music cultures from the far past meet in the present.

These are the sounds of the modern and the ancient.


Photo: Tony Overwater, Rembrandt Frerichs, Hossein Alizadeh and Vinsent Planjer, by Floris Scheplitz.