Album Notes

"CONTINU" a french word for "Continuous" is an album of 8 pieces, each performed based on a preliminary concept and structure, recorded in one take, with freedom of improvisation. Each piece follows a plot, with some pre-composed melodies, mingled with new phrases improvised as performed. The main concept of each piece is reflected in its title and the short description that follows.
1. Irreversible Pictures a poem by Shamlu (contemporary Iranian poet): “To renew the moon” as in rituals, we get on the rooftop with ‘opal and greens and mirror”, but a cold scythe passes through the sky conveying that the moon won't emerge.
2. Fairy An imagery creature telling tales, overflowing us with sweet and illusory dreams that send us to sleep, a sleep with ever-joyous endings.
3. Twilight Picturing an interval between night and dawn that seemingly reaches “the elixir of life”, redemption from sorrows.
4. Upturned The image of a tree in restless water is not only unsteady, but upturned. Alike a lifetime being lived from end to beginning, alike a borne oldness ending in youth; an ending of strange melancholy.
5. Whirlpool It pictures bottomless waters, limpid and tempting to drown in; submerging and floating in a whirlpool that is hauntingly both irresistible and terrifying.
6. Eluding It pictures a confrontation between an inflexible mentor and juvenile playfulness that eventually culminates in eluding.
7. Unutterable Alludes to an utterance that on one hand there's no might to utter and on the other perhaps no endurance to hear; a fable that ask not!
8. Return Returns it to a beginning, but not a repetition. In another form and from somewhere else, perhaps to another birth in some other world.

This album was recorded on July 14th and 21st 2007 at Aaftaab Aalamtaab Studio by Armin Kaarbaaf, all played on an 'Oud made by Mohammad Taghi Arafaati.