Why is my new song in Persian?
"And I am drunk, going mad from it all
The alcohol in my body won’t let me fall
But your thorns, wow, they burned my hands
You left me bleeding, staring up at the sky"
What's the story?
Twenty-five years ago I met Maureen Nehedar at the music academy in Jerusalem. She was studying classical opera, and I was studying jazz guitar. But even then she was digging into the music of her origins. Jewish-Persian music, and we had an instant chemistry.
We started a band, toured and made albums together.
Then life pulled us in different directions for two decades. She went on to build a remarkable career as a singer and scholar of that music. And now we're back in the same room.
Mastom is a classic Persian folk song we used to play together back then, the lyrics above are a free translation of Maureen's words. This time we wanted to do something different with it: strip it back to a beat and some piano, build it up around her voice, and let an old song breathe in a minimal, beat driven space.
The essence is untouched but everything around it is new.
I'm really proud of how it came out, and I'd love for you to hear it.
If you enjoyed this release please save it to your Spotify, it really does help spread it to more people.