Enlighten the Night

Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat has recorded an impressive series of albums – solo, with her sister Marjan Vahdat and with other collaborators. Placeless, the sisters’ 2019 recording with Kronos Quartet was a Top of the World in #147. Here Mahsa’s pure voice is filled with resilience and longing and indeed she’s lived through difficult times – unable to sing publicly back home in Iran and then periods of exile abroad. Yet the world of Iranian music is her home and she recreates it wherever she is with whatever musical forces she’s working with. In this case it’s Norwegian musicians on double bass and percussion and her husband Atabak Elyasi, who composed most of the music, on piano.

The line-up is inevitably reminiscent of a jazz trio, particularly in the upbeat ‘Bootarab’ named after a musician who brought joy in a poem by Rumi. More evocative, for me, are the songs that are closer to an Iranian sound world, such as ‘Where is the Home of the Wind’, accompanied by just double bass, and the title-track with bowed kamancheh. These are powerful songs, often with contemporary resonances, as in the closing poem, which says ‘I will build you again, my country, even if it is beyond my power.’