All of You

On this album Iranian pianist Hooshyar Khayam and ney player Amir Eslami join forces in a recording of largely improvised music, partly based on traditional Iranian melodies. While Khayam's previous solo album Thousand Acacias was pleasing, but somewhat fortuitous, the match between piano and ney brings the musicians much further. Most of the pieces were recorded in one take, although on some tracks, overdubs were made.

The two exploit a wide variety of possibilities on their instruments. This includes strumming the strings of the piano with fingers (and probably a plectrum¬like object), and producing overtones and wind sounds on the flute. The results criss-cross over world music, improvised jazz, contemporary classical and even experimental ambient pop. Khayam plays the piano in a modal style, divining all the melodic possibilities of one particular scale, based on the classical Persian modes. Strumming the strings of the piano makes it sound like a mix between a setar and a santur – something like a Persian long-neck lute crossed with a hammered dulcimer. However, as it is a Western piano with fixed notes, he's not able to produce the microtonal intervals that characterise Middle Eastern music. On the ney, Eslami can easily produce these variable intervals, and the concept of the album deliberately makes use of the harmonic tensions that ensue when the diverting pitches of the instruments clash. It is often claimed that Western keyboard instruments derive from Eastern instruments; Khayam and Eslami have fashioned a true blend of Persian and European music.