Duo Falak is Denis Sorokin on electro acoustic guitar and Shohin Qurbon on doyra (a kind of frame drum) and voice. What they mostly tackle and struggle within their music is something that really concerns me too: how to incorporate my (theirs in this case, having to do with Tajik traditional falak songs) tradition with what goes on today, both in musical and aesthetic terms. One of their answers is improvisation.
Improvisation, of course, is not, and never was, a privilege of western music. It is a practice rooted deep in numerous traditions around this beautiful planet and, in this case, is the main vehicle the two musicians use so to develop their ideas about this music. Even though the orientalist (if we see it from the western eyes) divide between East and West never ceased to exist, the war in Ukraine made it totally clear that this situation is not a walk in the park.
Listening and understanding recordings like Tira-Tira (with its beautiful handmade covers) can serve as a way to fulfill the Utopia of a unification of the people and not the fascists in power. Tira-Tira is beautiful, melodic, aggressive and full of energy music. In all six tracks of the CD there’s a religious aspect that channels images and feelings from the highlands of Pamir. The aforementioned instrumentation might be unusual (as you can read on the Bandcamp page) for this music, but it serves it right, I believe.
The two-stringed dutar is replaced by the guitar. I surely cannot make the comparison between the two, but I have to guess that even though they are both stringed instruments, Sorokin’s approach offers a new glaze to the music. This makes an equally playful and serious antithesis with Qurbon’s voice, one that feels like it is coming from centuries back, transporting the listener to the vast plains of former Soviet Republics.
Reading some of my remarks on this CD, it feels like some clichés are present…But this live recording, from September, 2023 in Tashkent, brings the listener back to the basics. Modern music that is informed by an old tradition by two musicians that want to react against the burden of this tradition but love it at the same time. There’s a western aggressive, rock element in the music, but as it is deeply rooted in the geography of these areas, you can certainly feel a trance elevation, a feeling of transcendence.
Listen here:
@koultouranafigo
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