DASTAN TRIO Journey To Persia 2003

Dastan Trio's release, Journey To Persia, is simply incredible. I've been privileged to listen to many Persian artists' CDs, but I'd have to say this is the best one I've heard. The music is absolutely beautiful and addicting.
It's also interesting to hear and experience the parallels between this music and Spanish flamenco compositions. The Tar is a wonderful instrument that has a soul and a heart and you can hear the emotion in each vibration of its strings. At times, I could swear it actually has a voice and is singing.
"Founded in 1991, "the almighty Dastan is perhaps the most forward-thinking group of its kind, re-establishing a repertoire of Persian classical music while using its fundamentals of melodic, rhythmic and dynamic variation to develop new forms and combined sonorities. The ensemble's structured improvisations are performed by several of the very best of the contemporary Persian musicians including Hamid Motebassem on Tar and Setar, Hossein Behroozi-Nia on barbat, and Pejman Hadadi on tombak" (John Payne, LA Weekly)

Thanks to We Love Music blog for this.

Track Listing
1. Prelude to Dastgah-E Mahur
2. Seven-Beat Rhythm
3. Gousheh Daad
4. Gousheh Khosravani
5. Gousheh Neyriz and Shekasteh
6. Modulation to Maqaam-E Afshari
7. Shirazi Song
8. Shurideh
9. Modulation to Dastgah-E Homayoon
10. Midnight Sun
11. Finale in Dastagh-E Mahur

Journey To Persia

Iranian Death Metal

Among the crowded streets of its capital Tehran, on to Isfahan and up northeast to Mashad near the Turkmenistan border, death metal is thriving in a place of the world you'd never thought possible - Iran. In an area of the world many people find mysterious and misunderstood, lies a way of life that is much more like our own here in the U.S.A. than we ever could imagine.
Even in a country where religion seems to rule the land, bands like Arsames, ArthimotH and SDS aren't letting the mollahs get in the way of their desire to create a new life through their music and self expression while resisting the status quo.

Here is Arsames during practise in Mashad


Arsames website

Listen to their song Cyclopia here.

SDS (Seven Deadly Sins) from Isfahan

ArthimotH Baptized video