Blue mystique mountain

The original sound source for this composition is a selection of Nuristani songs. The voice is accompanied by a plucked and bowed string instrument as a type of rhythmic drone. This recording is a recently rediscovered item in the Pitt Rivers sound museum and I was drawn to it based on its historical and tonal ambiguity. I find it interesting that the library information is not able to give an exact date for the recording, and it could have been recorded in either 1954, 1964, or 1970. There seems to be many conflicting theories about the "origins" of the people residing in the Nuristani area, however due to the more recent introduction of Islam, their pre-Islamic rites, religion and rituals are still strong. 

The language that the songs are recited in attracted me as it did not sound like the main current language used in that region. As a young child I lived in the north west of Iran which is not far from Afghanistan and remember those years as a profoundly simple, dream-like and creatively rich source of my silent inner memory palace. There are infinite sound worlds resting in that deep inner silence and this composition juxtaposes through the use of sound the innocence of this seemingly ritualistic music with the intensity of the more recent history of the region.

Traditional Nuristani songs reimagined by Mastaneh Nazarian.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds