M dM MMr 4MMML . MMMMM. xf . "MMMMM .MM Mh.. +MMMMMM .MMMM .MMM. .MMMMML. MMMMMh )MMMh. MMMMMM MMMMMMM 3MMMMx. 'MMMMMMf xnMMMMMM" '*MMMMM MMMMMM. nMMMMMMP" *MMMMMx "MMMMM\ .MMMMMMM= *MMMMMh "MMMMM" JMMMMMMP MMMMMM 3MMMM. dMMMMMM . MMMMMM "MMMM .MMMMM( .nnMP" =.. *MMMMx MMM" dMMMM" .nnMMMMM* "MMn... 'MMMMr 'MM MMM" .nMMMMMMM*" "4MMMMnn.. *MMM MM MMP" .dMMMMMMM"" ^MMMMMMMMx. *ML "M .M* .MMMMMM**" *PMMMMMMhn. *x > M .MMMM**"" ""**MMMMhx/.h/ .=*" .3P"% nP" "*MMnx _________________________________________________________ __/ \ (__ ___) \______________________________________________________/ ._RELEASE_INFO_________ . \______________________________________. . . . Artist >> ZAMAN 8 & Hafez Modir . . Album >> Suryaghati 1 . . . .______________________ . . \______________________________________. . . . Style >> New Age . . Date >> Apr-08-2007 . . Street >> 000-00-0000 . . Company >> Six Degrees Records . . Media >> CDDA . . Size >> 28,6 MB . . . . . ._RELEASE NOTES________ . . \______________________________________. . . . Note: Rip was not re-encoded in VBR, it s "as-is" from our . . source website! . . . . Enjoy! . . . . ZAMAN 8 isn't just a part of Six Degrees' "Emerging . . Artists Series" û in a sense, the group is a model for what . . this series of digital-only releases is about. The San . . Francisco-based world-electronic duo, collaborating with . . Iranian-American sax master Hafez Modir, creates . . distinctive, genre-bending music that fits the digital . . world's emphasis on immediacy and community. But at a time . . when much of today's global music scene is based on the pop . . model - built for speed and easily disposable - ZAMAN 8 . . draws on Persian and Indian classical traditions, jazz . . improvisation, African rhythms and modern dance grooves to . . create music that's eclectic, likable, and built to last. . . . . "Much of what exists in our genre seems very momentary," . . says Sanaz Ebriani, the duo's Iranian-born singer and . . co-producer. Along with her partner, guitarist/programmer . . Dan Newman, she wanted to find a Persian word that . . reflected the group's desire to make something new out of . . music traditions that have endured for centuries. "ZAMAN . . means time, duration, era," she explains, "and the number 8 . . turned to its side is the infinity sign, so put time and . . infinity together and you get timelessness." . . . . ZAMAN 8's digital-only releases are clearly a part of our . . time û dance music's ongoing love affair with Indian . . percussion helps shape the song "Surya," for example, and . . "Sukra" neatly mixes a jaunty Near Eastern rhythm on the . . hand drums with some highly processed drum programming. . . But on top of that, the group deploys an unusual array of . . keyboard and guitar sounds, vocals, and Hafez Modir's . . extraordinary solos. "We do have strong influences coming . . from jazz," says Dan Newman, "in particular the exploratory . . power of improvisation which we're all deeply invested in. . . We want our music to have that intensity of a great solo." . . The three musicians often build each track around a moment . . of inspiration that occurs during their improvisations. . . Newman likens it to hip hop, "where a track is built from . . the "break" - the highlight moment of a Parliament or James . . Brown track." . . . . ZAMAN 8's first two digital EP releases come from a larger . . project called Suryaghati û a Sanskrit word that means . . "sundial" û which was conceived as a collection of nine . . tracks, based on the nine heavenly bodies of ancient Hindu . . cosmology. Suryaghati is a reflection of the constant . . motion of musical ideas across the globe û a musical . . sundial that tracks the shadows cast by African . . polyrhythms, hip-hop production, and the trance traditions . . of North Africa's Gnawa people and the modern dance clubs. . . . . The inaugural tracks from ZAMAN 8 owe a lot to the . . Iranian-American sax player and composer Hafez Modir, who . . also plays the Middle Eastern ney flute, and has applied . . the techniques he learned on Arab and Asian reed . . instruments to the tenor sax. The result is a sound that . . is impossible to pin down, either to a time or a place. . . "The tone sometimes reminds me of a Hendrix solo," says Dan . . Newman. On both "Surya" and "Ketu," Modir's tenor sax . . wails like a North African oboe. It's a reflection of . . Modir's concept of "Chromodal Discourse," a musical process . . developed over years of study and which Ebriani says . . "allows the exchange of musical idioms without watering . . either down, or compromising the original music." . . . . Instead of trying to fuse East and West, ZAMAN 8 follows . . the Chromodal Discourse model: "by looking at our . . particularities," Modir explains, "those things that . . distinguish us from one another, by appreciating that, . . you're able to appreciate large universalities that . . underline our humanity." Acknowledging that Persian, West . . African, Indian, and electronic music are all different . . traditions, ZAMAN 8 finds the common elements that let them . . create something original and organic. "Ketu," for . . instance, seamlessly blends the mystical, breathy sound of . . the Sufi ney flute with the African thumb piano and Modir's . . keening sax. All of it flowing over some bass and . . percussion programming that leaves no doubt what century . . this music is from. And "Sani" uses both live and . . programmed percussion and bass as the backing for some of . . Modir's most surprising and perhaps most traditionally . . "jazzy" improvs, again using the ney and the tenor sax. . . . . Improvisation, which is common to American jazz and the . . traditions of Asia and Near East, is a key element in ZAMAN . . 8's production, and both Dan Newman and Sanaz Ebriani have . . strong û if unusual û histories with jazz. Dan Newman's . . father is a part-time jazz musician who actually produced . . the underground film "Space Is the Place," starring the . . late cosmic voyager/jazz legend known as Sun Ra. Dan sees . . that as a pivotal influence on his 6-year old self: "I was . . often on set during filming, taking in the majesty of the . . Arkestra (Sun Ra's band) and the cosmological aesthetics, . . concepts and vision of Sun Ra." In the 1990s, Newman . . studied Ghanaian drumming and jazz at Wesleyan University . . in Connecticut, where he met Hafez Modir, who became his . . mentor. Sanaz Ebriani, born in Tehran to a . . surrealist-painter father and a mother who was a singer, . . grew up hearing everything from Persian-Jewish chant to Ray . . Charles. She studied jazz through high school, college, . . and finally, in 2002, attended the San Francisco State . . University's Jazz and World Vocals program, where her . . mentor was none other than Hafez Modir. . . . . It's a small world, and as Six Degrees Records likes to . . remind us, everything in it is closer than you think. Now, . . with the advent of digital releases, ZAMAN 8 hopes to be . . closer than ever to its audience. "We are thrilled to be a . . part of Six Degrees' turn towards digital," Dan says. "One . . thing is that it allows more flexible releasing patterns. . . So we might come up with a great track and suddenly there's . . an opportunity for it to be released much quicker." And as . . Sanaz points out, "releasing music in smaller chunks seems . . to bring the feedback loop in much closer - so that as . . musicians we get to share what we do much faster and that . . keeps the inspiration at a high level." . . . . The evolution of ZAMAN 8 is already speeding up. The next . . batch of songs will focus more on singing and songwriting, . . Dan Newman says. "The jazz element may be a bit less and . . the Middle Eastern and Brazil/West African element may come . . yet more to the fore. The 'timeless' goal and much of the . . process of production will be much the same." With their . . own world music radio website (www.zaman8.com) and wider . . exposure through the Emerging Artists Series, ZAMAN 8 is . . uniquely poised to leave a lasting impression in the . . here-today-gone-tomorrow world of digital music. . . . . . ._TRACK_LISTING________ . . \______________________________________. . . . >> 01 >> Surya >> 05:30 . . >> 02 >> Ketu >> 04:47 . . >> 03 >> Sukra >> 06:19 . . >> 04 >> Sani >> 04:34 . . . . >> 21:10 min . . . .______________________ . . \______________________________________. . . . . .______________________ . \___________________________nfo_by_sp__.