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.”
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..
New York, New York, October 2006 - London born, New York based world-fusion songwriter and composer Geoffrey Armes announced the release of his sixth solo CD, a suite of music inspired by the life and death of Noor Inayat Khan (1914-44). Noor, an accomplished musician and writer in her own right was the daughter of well-known Sufi commentator and musician Hazrat Inyat Khan, and led an eventful, if short life, that ended in Dachau,
September 1944.
Geoffrey says, “Discovering the life - and death--- of Noor Inayat Khan, especially in the context of her father's writing and work was something of a call to action. Here was a woman in possession of 'spiritual' content or inner reality, who had grown up in a tradition of beautiful words and music, who voluntarily thrust herself into the middle of Europe’s coarsest mayhem of the 20th Century. Did she know what she was in for?” and adds “What does a composer/poet/musician do with this response — he puts it into sound and lyrics.”
Noor Teaser
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Noor is available as a conventional CD via www.GeoffreyArmes.com and Cdbaby, and via downloads at www.omstream.com and itunes.
Noor, the film, scheduled release Feb 2007
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
Geoffrey Armes Village Recording's Friend Space (Top 3)
When I am with you, we stay up all night, When you're not here, I can't get to sleep. Allah be praised, for these 2 insomnias! And for the difference between them.
You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You - Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the apothecary. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So - I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.
Dear friend
I am sending you this to let you know that my first release on the web through myspace and audigist is now accomplished.
Now you can visit my page at: www. myspace. com/chakradar to listen and download my music.
Thank you for the support and friendship.
Peace and love
Thanks for your friendship! Please send us any music or other entertainment that you would like to see featured on the RED BANANA, and keep checking back to our webzine for updates!!!
xx "On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?" - Mitch Hedberg
Everythings good... working all hours trying to get my first publication ready... the finishing line is so near... but its so far away at the same time...
I just got back in town from Conway, Arkansas - The Storm was just feeling the mood of tighting up loose ends and workin' before i jump in the mode of being on the road. All is good, "mas-sha-allah"
No I'm not word-smithing, I wish I was. No Motivation. Nothing, same old same old, in not very inspiring surroundings. Hope things are better for you my friend. To create something for true artists, writers, poets, musicians is to draw a brook of milk out of a stone.
Dance, as though no one is watching, Love, as though you've never been hurt before, Sing, as though no one can hear you, Work, as though you don't need the money, Live, as though heaven is on earth. ~Rumi~
Online Now!
