Jamshid Jam by Ramin Roshandel & Jean-Francois Charles

Ramin Roshandel, setār
Jean-Francois Charles, live electronics

How do you imagine taking part in a dialogue with the sound of an ancient tradition that has always been on the verge of disappearance? The sonic dust of a country that has been burned to the ground several times over the centuries and yet has formed some of the most elaborate and highly sophisticated musical structures to have ever existed. How does one find a language to communicate with such a phenomenon? How would one penetrate the many ephemeral layers of such a sound world? In Jamshid Jam, the artists assume the impossibility of such dialogue by taking it to its extreme, where the very nature of logic and language is dissolved. The two sonic sensibilities do not meet for a dialogue, peace-making, or other metaphorical forms of meaning-making external to the sounds, but to touch, just to touch what is in front of them through the medium of an ancient instrument and a futuristic machine.
Nima Janmohammadi.

After concerts in Chicago, Iowa City, and New-York City, we are proud to present Ramin Roshandel & Jean-Francois Charles’s debut studio album: Jamshid Jam.
According to Persian myths, Jamshid was the "inventor of music." In Jamshid Jam, Roshandel & Charles combine haunting melodies and ancestral rhythms with live sampling and remixing to create a new imaginary folklore.

Tracklist

1.	Bayāt-e Tork	18:22

2.	Chāhārgāh	9:40
3.	Segāh	20:08
4.	Bayāt-e Esfahān	12:53

Videos

Credits

released October 18, 2022

Composed & performed by Ramin Roshandel & Jean-François Charles
Recorded & produced by Jean-François Charles
Mixed & mastered by Frédéric Apffel

Liner notes:
- Touching Language, Sounds, and Shadows, by Nima Janmohammadi, composer & performer of Persian classical music
- From an Artificial Existence to a New Identity, by Nima Hamidi, computer scientist & composer

Cover calligraphy & photography by Ramin Roshandel
Graphic design by Marc Dannenhoffer

License