Peeling the Tangerine, The fragrance of Pain…
Trust The Tangerine Peel, Mohsen Namjoo
The New York Times referred to Mohsen Namjoo as the “Bob Dylan of Iran”. Unfortunately this reference is not only inaccurate, but also misleading. It is of course difficult to introduce an artist foreign to English speaking audiences without drawing parallels with a known name. Namjoo is among the most difficult cases to categorize and box up in an easily palatable package. To make direct comparisons between any artist is only indicative of the difficulty to convey the essence of an artist’s work to the reader. The problem however, starts with the artist himself. Namjoo can’t be boxed, packaged and bowed up.
Non Persian speaking audiences miss at least half of the substance that Namjoo offers in his work. Half of the Persian speaking audiences miss almost all of the substance of his work. Namjoo himself seems to be oblivious to where he lives as a musician and poet. He gallops in an artistic battlefield that claims the most victims. Once an artist jumps off of the steep cliffs of the mainstream, or claws up and over the tall, ancient walls of traditional castles, he or she would find themselves in a battleground that has no rules. A no holds barred jungle where even Darwin’s survival of the fittest rule doesn’t hold.
The artistic territory outside the traditional castles and mainstream plateaus is vainly referred to as “Experimental”. A characterization as futile and useless as comparing one artist with another in order to focus the readers’ curiosity. The elegant concision of referring to Namjoo as the Bob Dylan of Iran indicates the author’s unease with what Namjoo does. A constant state of disassembly and reassembly of literary and musical genres. While it is impossible to categorize and concisely package his work and where he stands, it is very easy to detect the end of the Namjoo phenomenon. That is when a clearly defined and packaged Mohsen Namjoo style surfaces. Namjoo ceases to exist when he becomes the “Bob Dylan of Iran”.
Mohsen Namjoo at his best, is like a mutant honey bee. An agile, curious and constantly motive artistic insect that doesn’t transplant the seeds of one genre to another, but assembles the germs to create new living artistic organisms that are sometimes bitter, cactus like thorny beings like OY, and sometimes fragrant colourful flowers like Toranj. Sometimes he abandons the germination process altogether and creates a honey-like Useless Kisses. The germs of any given creation are familiar but the creation itself shares little in common with the sources of those germs. A clear example of of this thick, honey-like creation is his latest album, Trust the Tangerine Peel.
Gol Mohammad is the title track in this soon to be released album. The name itself has an odd taste and flavour. On the one hand it refers to an ancient rosewater distilling raw material known in Iran as the Mohammadi Flower. A highly fragrant rose named after the Islamic prophet Mohammad. The name on the other hand, simply refers to a provincial culture with which children are named. Gol Mohammad is a simple name used by villagers. The song tells the story of Naneh Gol Mohammad, Gol Mohammad’s mother who is on a pilgrimage to her son’s grave. A pilgrimage of agony, torment and rebellion. Agony from the loss of a loved one, torment from having to live while he is dead and rebellion against belief in anything that led to her son’s death. Namjoo’s honey sap doesn’t have a simple taste. The lyrics are just the after taste. The music is the thick sap that injects those lyrics directly into the listeners’ bloodstream. It is so thick that makes it difficult to ingest. The potency of the music in this title track shocks the palate.
The intro to Gol Mohammad makes the listener wonder if Namjoo has in fact ceased to exist by locking himself up in the Castles of tradition. Deceptively simple and traditional, Namjoo buzzes around our senses with his fragile, simple Setar. The learned ear soon picks up an odd flavour in the tonality of that deceiving Setar. The melodic progression is subliminal, disconcerting and unfamiliar yet recognizable. The structure of this intro is of the Khorasani Mode (mogham) in Persian folk music. The bridges reach out of the traditional, into seemingly incompatible foreign music. In a simple intro of less than one minute, Namjoo uses his fragile and inaccurate Setar to inject a numbing opiate that takes an ancient Khorasani Mode, infuses it with blues-like melodic transitions and prepares our palate for the shock that is to follow. The outburst of a distorted electric guitar shapes the signature melody of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love as if it always belonged to Gol Mahammad’s desperate mother on her pilgrimage to his grave. By this point, the listener has been stung by the same poison that Namjoo himself has been stung by. The poison of music, a universal language that knows no boundaries except pure human emotions.
Trust the Tangerine peel is why artists like Mohsen Namjoo cannot be cleanly boxed and packaged with a New York Times ribbon and bow for the masses to enjoy. For the sake of all those non-Persian speakers who can’t enjoy half of Namjoo’s music because they can’t understand his lyrics and for the sake of half of those Persian speakers who can’t fathom all of his work, I submit to the wisdom of the New York Times. If we have to give an example from this side to have an idea of what he is about on the other side, Namjoo is more like the “Prince of Iran”. The artist formerly called Prince.
Babak Payami
Spring 2014