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 | Richard Horowitz & Sussan Deyhim:Majoun (Sony Classical - 1997) East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet, wrote the constipated old poet laureate of Victorian England. Nowadays, with all the world's musics at their fingertips in a way previous generations of composers could never even imagine, East and West not only have met, but are on rather intimate terms with one another. |
| A prime example is this long-awaited new collaboration between New York
City multi-instrumentalist Richard Horowitz and Teheran-born songstress
Sussan Deyhim. A previous showcase of their work together, Desert
Equations: Azax Attra, on the Made to Measure series released by Crammed
Discs, contained work compiled from continuous efforts at development
during the eighties; the results were occasionally stunning, but as a whole
there is a fragmentary feel of snapshot possibilities rather than
full-fledged panoramic sense of purpose.
All such qualifications are swept away by this 1997 release on Sony Classical. Justifiably characterized as "compositionally rigorous" by Horowitz in an interview, Majoun is a tapestry of heady, inspirational swirls of sound and colour. The multi-tracked voice of Deyhim, while in a class of its own, never dominates the instrumental imaginativeness of Horowitz. While the opening, title track (a logical progression from the track "I'm a Man" on Desert Equations) and the fourth, "Whorls on the Mount of Moon", stand out as miniature masterpieces in their own right, the whole album gels in a way to make this hour of music bore its way into your consciousness and set up permanent residency there. (The care in producing this album is evident in Horowitz' statement that he did enough remixes of "Whorls on the Mount of Moon" to fill three CDs - release them! Release them!) A plethora of guest musicians, including (on most tracks) the Moroccon National Radio and Television Orchestra String Section, create a sound that marries the far-flung influences perfectly to one another, rather than resulting in an interesting collection of cultural juxtapositions. In summation, simply a breath-taking piece of work; perhaps it should not be classified under the ambient umbrella, for from the very start, its magical arrangements and Deyhim's enticing vocals act like a magnet, drawing all attention in the room toward the music. |
| Let us hope that we do not have to wait ten more years before the next collaboration between Deyhim and Horowitz is released. Two Thumbs Up! (SF) |  |
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