If ever there was a reminder that modern music evolved out of devotional spaces, that it has always had a higher purpose than merely a mechanism for chasing fame and fortune, which has sadly become the overriding concern of the current age, P U R E is it.
Behrang Ghodrati is an Iranian composer and producer whose creative path has taken him from film to theatre, animation, and instrumental music, and here he gives us a collection of songs celebrating the power of the human voice. Six tracks that have a voice-as-instrument sound at their core, lyricless yet effortlessly engaging, this is music that speaks not through the usual forms of communication, but whose ethereal (a word that is, for once, justified in a music review) moods and mellifluous melodies connect with something deeper, older, more primal, engaging our heart and our soul rather than the logical side of our senses.
The first four pieces all orbit the angelic beauty of this vocal presence (presence seems a good word, as opposed to more human words like recital or performance), setting this pure sound (hence the album title) in a sonic landscape of ambient drift and floating majesty.
‘Pure V’ features a more precise, though no less gorgeous, vocal sharing space with the ebb and flow of scintillating strings, and even these delicate components move from loving lulls to cascading crescendos to create a wonderful dynamic. The EP closes with a piano and violin duet of ‘Pure II’, now without vocals, letting us appreciate the sheer beauty of its subtle, supple interpretation.
Of course, in the modern age, Ghodrati works largely in the media world, but the music here harks back to a time when such music was made to celebrate the world around us, to give thanks to the unseen, higher forces in our lives, voices raised to the heavens, art as a pure, sacrificial creation, made, offered up and then gone. Music of a moment. Times might have changed, but the beauty of a perhaps largely lost creative world, thanks to Behang Ghodrati, remains.
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