While very well established and highly respected as solo artists, Porya Hatami and Uwe Zahn, aka Arovane, have only recently formed their creative partnership, but it has turned out to be a fruitful one with the release of three full length albums featuring their collaborative work in less than a year – Resonance on ÉTER (2015), Veerian which also featured Darren McClure on Eilean Rec (2016), and now Kaziwa which is about to be released in two physical editions by artisan label Time Released Sound who also released Hatami’s sublime solo effort Arrivals and Departures (2014). As one might expect from artists with such deep wells of experience and creativity to draw upon, the new record goes down a different path than its predecessors:
“Uwe Zahn (Arovane) and Porya Hatami’s latest collaborative project finds the pair concentrating their sound sources and focusing on a specific instrument: the piano. Hatami is known for the piano work that appears throughout his previous material, but with this release, it takes center stage. For his contributions, Zahn delved into the sonic possibilities of Native Instruments’ new Una Corda, a modern virtual synth that captures the sound of a custom made contemporary piano.”
This commitment to keep the piano as the central focus suggests an especially delicate approach to sonic exploration and that is exactly what Kaziwa offers – fifteen carefully constructed soundscapes and sketches that accentuate the crystalline tones and intrinsic fragility of the instrument rather than obscure or overwhelm it.
“Kaziwa” is a Kurdish word for dusk and indeed this record creates very much of a twilight kind of mood. Some pieces are particularly beautiful in a melancholic way (“vaun”, “lith”), some are bright and playful (“uun”, “abiee”), and others are imbued with a slightly eerie film-noir ambiance (“juee”, “phea”). Each one has a little something different to say, but all share the album’s overarching motif and oneiric feel. This is yet another fine work by two masterful artists.
As is their custom, Time Released Sound offers Kaziwa in two editions – a standard CD digipak (150 copies) and a deluxe version (75 copies) which comes in the form of a set of five, corner hinged 6.5” square sheets of black fine art paper with an attached vintage clock hand backed with a used, antique shooting range target all tucked into a translucent sleeve.
Order: http://timereleasedsound.com/time-released-sound/kaziwa/
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