Music:
Member Since: 10/19/2006
Band Website: NoorCD.com
Band Members: PLEASE DO NOT ADD UNLESS YOU FEEL A DEFINITE CONNECTION WITH THIS PROJECT-- I'm not interested in building numbers for their own sake -- yours or mine. A message is highly appreciated. Having got that out the way, the band is................. Me, playing guitars, keys and percussion... Todd Evans describes: “Noor reveals itself to be rather like a hybrid Arabic, Indian, West-African world music nod to prog – an avant-garde progressive world music, if you like labels. These are longer length songs (five of the seven songs range from 7-11 minutes) often parsed together using movements, which helps Armes to flesh out these musical vignettes. They are primarily driven by keyboards that shift through jazz inflected electric piano vamps, textured synth washes, and a wide variety of dialed-up sounds such as xylophone and Egyptian oboe with tempered microtones. Modal acoustic guitar riffing skirts the periphery but jumps to the forefront in the right spaces, and is underpinned by a melodically insistent bass joined by what has become by now, Armes’ hallmark admixture of strongworld percussion this time featuring talking drums, dumbek, ubang and udu. He spotlights each song’s lyrical content with provocative running commentary in an impressive eight page CD booklet, and then brings the poetry to life through his signature vocal style, marked by a yearning emotional intensity and intonation ornaments that evoke early David Sylvian.â€
Influences: Noor Inayat Khan, Sufi Princess, daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Children's Book Author, Musician, Allied Spy, died in Dachau September 13th 1944, 29 years old. The more I learned about her, the more I read her father's words, the more fascinated I became. This music is an expression of that.Holder of both the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre, Noor Inayat Khan, the daughter of American Amina Begum and Indian Sufi Musician Hazrat Inayat Khan, was born in Moscow January 1st 1914. She spent most of her youth in Paris, but subsequent to Hazrat's death (1927), the outbreak of WW2 and the invasion of France Noor moved to London (1940). She returned to Paris in June 1943, as an Allied Spy Radio Operator, only to be captured in October. Held by the Gestapo, after great suffering Noor was executed September 13th 1944, in Dachau.As I excavated this music, then worked it into shape I became aware of certain obsessions coursing through the lode... Like the moments of decision: to join the forces (a pacific Sufi daughter sees dark reality and the need for practicality and active work in the world), and when half-prescient she set foot in that Lysander for a final flight home. Like death, in Dachau.Sufi, a particular stance, understanding, knowledge, or service. To give a life though? To what or who, inner or outer?
Sounds Like: I've worked -- performed/accompanied/composed -- London Contemporary Dance, CBGBs, Fred Schneider, Eurythmics, Bernie Worrell, Juilliard School, Danceworks Berlin, Martha Graham School, Merce Cunningham Studio, MIke Turtle, Veleroy Rab Spall, Frankie Knuckles, Rab Spall, NYU, Koeln Tanzforum/Sommer Akademie, Die Etage, Risiko, The Bitter End, Tokyo, Osaka, Paul Taylor, Laban Centre, Beydi Fall Senegal, Pascal Rioult, Alvin Ailey, Neighborhood Playhouse, Tom Desisto, Rambert Academy, etc etc..
Record Label: GeoffreyArmes.com
Type of Label: None
