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My brother just got back from Iran. Oh yes, Iran. He has been traveling there for a month as researcher. He brought a couple of CDs with him back home. One of them is the CD "Alba" by Nour Ensamble, released on Hermes Records, an Iranian record label.
Nour Ensamble sounds like a mixture of Gregorian chants (you remember those Spanish monks that produced a best selling record and got fame and fortune against their will), European mediaeval music and of cause Persian tunes. Some horns, drums, bells and whistles. Parts of it make me think of music I used to listen to a couple of years ago when I had a musical period with traditional Swedish folk music and stuff like Wisby Vaganter
The songs of are Nour Ensamble very beautiful, downtempo and almost dream like. Much more European sounding than you would expect. Really cool.
The quality of the recording is the best I’ve ever heard. They seem to use few but good microphones and record carefully at well chosen locations. And it sounds extremely good. And I mean that both in the artistically sense, as well as the technical. The sound stage and the depth in the stereo image is tremendous.
Here is the thing. 99.999% of all western European and American mainstream music can match this quality. 99.99% don’t even come close.
All the Britney Spears, James Blunts and Gwen Stefanis of the world and all of the major record label management teams should book the first flight to Iran; humbly ask the guys at Hermes for a meeting and sit quite, have tea and try to learn one or two things on how to make good recordings and good records. The Hermes guys in Iran knows much more about this than all of them together.
The good thing is that you can buy recordings from the Hermes catalog online.
http://www.nourensemble.com/
http://www.hermesrecords.com/

Pdf om inspelingen av "Alba"
Mp3-fil - "Alba" - 96kbit från deras webbplats
Mp3-fil - "Miragres fremosos" - 96kbit från deras webbplats