Burn the Bridges is a collection of instrumental Middle Eastern disaporic compositions, comprising selections from soundtracks as well as what could be called 'imaginary soundtracks.' The compositions use both live and electronic music. Some are recordings that are centered upon the oud, qanun, live strings, and live percussion, while others are purely electronic.

Recorded over several years, in different locations from Beirut, to Edinburgh, to Cambridge MA, the pieces are reflections upon friendships and connections that have brought me into contact with other passionate lovers of the possibilities inherent in music inspired by the cultures of northern Africa and western Asia, when put into conversation with new modes of recording and orchestration.

The album’s title plays on different meanings. On one hand it invokes an apocalyptic scene of a world, perhaps not far from our own, where the metaphorical bridges between cultures are no longer possible?

On the other hand, the title references a conscious determination to composing music without a “bridge” — the songwriting term for a third section to a song that is conventional to the Western popular song tradition. The compositions on Burn the Bridges tend to eschew the notion of a bridge, instead exploring the possibilities — long conventional in music of Iran and the Arab world — of repetition that spirals or modulates through shifts in orchestration and instrumentation. The Western popular song uses the bridge to, in a sense, give the song’s story completion. Without bridges, musical pieces may be less about producing a story or a complete self contained experience, than they are small windows that give glimpses of experiences and histories.

Some of the compositions of the album are selected from soundtracks for films: the Palestinian feature films Salt of This Sea (2009) and Where I Saw You (2014), directed by Annemarie Jacir, and a documentary directed by Nassim Amouache titled Quelques miettes pour les oiseaux (2005). These recordings have been remixed and remastered for this collection, and placed alongside other original recordings that work as imaginary soundtracks to films that are yet to be made. I’m very grateful to the filmmakers and producers for their support in the process of releasing this material.

The name of this album refers to an illustrated Persian-language newspaper published in Cairo (1904-1950), one of many publications that called for freedom and reform in Iran. Pieces in this collection are selected from three soundtracks (Hopefully for the Better, dir. Raed al-Helou; Like Twenty Impossibles, Annemarie Jacir; and Whose Children Are These, Theresa Thanjan) and also original pieces that were inspired by the legacy of the 19th century Iranian community of Egypt, of which almost no trace remains today.

Kamran Rastegar: Oud, Guitar, Samples
Zafer Tawil: Percussion
Kamrooz Aram: Percussion
Sami Shumays: Violin
Katie Taylor: Double Bass
Golriz Dadedel: Voice