Venue: Drom (NY)
Date: August 2, 2013
Review by Dawoud Kringel
On a beautiful summer night, Drom was packed, mostly with Iranians, who were there to hear their man: Mohsen Namjoo. After a brief announcement, Namjoo came to the stage, accompanied by Yahya Alkhansa (member of 127) on percussion. At this point, I must admit I’d never heard Namjoo before this night. Nothing could have prepared me for the performance I was to hear.
A purposefully struck chord cut through the air like the azan or adhan (Islamic call to prayer). A mournful rhythm with two chords was joined by the percussion. Suddenly, a frightening voice broke through. Like Tom Waits crawling through a desert, emerging from a torturous meditation, hallucinating djinns masquerading as Screaming Jay Hawkins reincarnated as a mad Sufi. Weird falsettos and rumbling basso popping out and ambushing the ears. All thus manifesting within a sparse rhythm in an improbable Persian time signature.
