Kamancello (KA) is a musical duo consisting of Raphael Weinroth-Browne (cello) and Shahriyar Jamshidi (kamanche). We spoke with Raphael to discussed the freedom of improvised performances, the blurring of genres they perform, and their origins as a group. Keep an eye on their social media pages for details on their debut full-length, to be released later in 2017.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamancellomusic/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/kamancellomusic
Latest release: Radiance (Single, February 2017)
Upcoming shows:
Stay tuned!
SA: How did Kamancello start, and when did you start playing together?
KA: Shahriyar and I met in summer 2014 in Toronto. I found out through a friend that Shahriyar had recently performed in a fully improvised concert on kamanche. I’ve been listening to Persian music since I was very young and always loved the kamanche, so, naturally, I was excited about the possibility of collaborating with someone who played the instrument. I reached out to him online and we met up for an improvised jam, which went very well. There are many improvised concert series in Toronto, so a few weeks later we decided to perform together in front of an audience - the chemistry was excellent and we felt inspired to continue playing together.
Over the past two years, we have performed at a variety of concerts in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and we have recorded material for a full-length album.
SA: What bands, musicians, or artists would you say are the biggest influences on your sound?
KA: This is an interesting question because in many cases, a band’s sound will draw influence from very specific places but our music, being purely improvised, is primarily the result of our individual musical personalities and the way they interact together. Shahriyar has a strong background in traditional Kurdish and Iranian music, having spent most of his life in Iran, growing up around music, and attending the conservatory in Tehran. I have been an avid listener of Persian music for over a decade, and I also incorporate elements of metal and classical; they are an integral part of my playing. What we have created live and in the studio feels very fresh to me, unlike traditional Persian music or other forms of classical/world music.
I think that when you have to create music in real time, it directly reflects your musical identity, which is a very different process from building a piece gradually over time and having the opportunity to edit or even censor certain elements that come through naturally.
SA: Thus far in your career, what has been your biggest accomplishment?
KA: From a live perspective, performing at Montreal’s Festival du Monde Arabe was an awesome experience. We played at Place des Arts to an extremely engaged and attentive audience, and I felt that our performance was very focussed and fulfilling.
Recording our first album was also a big achievement in my opinion and a truly inspiring experience. We spent a full day in the studio recording long improvised pieces. Despite the fact that nothing we played was premeditated, all the pieces felt cohesive and unique. The second day was almost exclusively spent listening to takes. It was a beautiful experience to simply allow the music to reveal itself and not try to construct and edit something to clinical perfection. It’s also very liberating to enter the studio with no idea what the resulting sounds will be and to be able to discover them almost for the first time after having recorded them.
SA: On the other hand, what is the biggest challenge you have faced, and how have you dealt with it?
KA: As a musical group, I think our ongoing challenge is finding the right venues and contexts in which to perform. Given that what we do is unrehearsed and fully spontaneous, we need a fully attentive audience and thus bars and clubs are not ideal spaces for our music. This limits the possibility of playing frequently as a smaller act, but we have nonetheless had great experiences performing at venues such as Place des Arts in Montreal and Small World Music Centre in Toronto. We also played a house concert in Ottawa more recently, which I consider to be one of our best shows to date, as the audience was totally engaged and we had the right energy to fully immerse ourselves in the sonic worlds we were creating.
SA: What are your thoughts on the Ottawa music scene, and particularly, your fit within it?
KA: I grew up in Ottawa and feel very connected with the city’s musical landscape, and I have worked with many local musicians over the years. I think that culturally, Ottawa has huge potential waiting to be fully realized. People in Ottawa love music and always seem to respond well to new artists and sounds, and I feel like many very unique and interesting projects have emerged from the city over the years. Whenever I invite musicians from other cities in Canada or further abroad to perform in Ottawa, they are always impressed by the response they receive and the quality of the local acts.
At this point, I don’t necessarily see Kamancello as part of the local “scene,” particularly since we’ve only played a couple of times in Ottawa to date - that being said, the response we received both times was fantastic. I wouldn’t say we really fit squarely into any scene for that matter - world music or otherwise. Our main focus is to make great music, regardless of genre or association. Like all of my projects, Kamancello is not solely focussed on operating at a local level, but an international one. If there’s any one piece of advice I would give Ottawa musicians, particularly younger artists or bands, it would be to concentrate on the bigger picture and find a broader audience without getting overly concerned with one’s popularity on a local level.
SA: What was your experience like working at Toronto's Union Sound Company and how did the recording session go?
KA: Union Sound Company is an amazing studio and I was fortunate to know about it and work there multiple times before it was officially opened. They have a huge live room and fantastic microphones, which are ideal for a project such as ours. The sessions were recorded by Leon Taheny; he is an absolute wizard when it comes to capturing acoustic sounds and mixing detailed, intricate music. He also has a very calm and relaxed manner while working in the studio, which I think is an important quality for any engineer. I had previously worked with him on the debut albums from The Visit and Flying Horses among a number of other projects so it was a very familiar process to record with him again. As you can see in our video, Shahriyar and I were set up facing each other in the live room, so we were able to communicate our musical ideas very directly and maintain eye contact while playing. We also didn’t need headphones, which allowed for a very natural recording process and better timing and intonation. The first day was very intense as we recorded roughly 16 pieces, averaging 10 minutes each. It was exciting to hear the diversity and range of moods evoked by each improvisation. On the second day, we recorded two more pieces, and then spent the rest of the session listening to all of the material and getting a sense of what we had to work with. Essentially, we spent two days working in the studio and virtually no time editing, which is an unusually easy process. It’s nice to know that what you will hear on the album is exactly what we played.
SA: I personally have not heard anything like your music before: I'm curious as to how would you describe it to someone who has never heard it before?
KA: Timeless, nationless music performed by two people playing from a completely honest place. Although Kamancello clearly has roots in our respective musical backgrounds, I think our sound exists in a realm outside of the “world music” or “fusion” genres and deals more broadly in conveying emotional landscapes and intricate dialogues. This is music for anyone and everyone, if they are ready to listen.
SA: Apt613 has written about you: 'Their improvised performances are unlike anything you’ve ever heard, both from anyone else or the duo themselves'. Is this process always invigorating, or is it ever stressful, not knowing what comes next when performing together?
KA: I would say that improvising is always less stressful than performing written music because there are truly no mistakes. In this spontaneous context, the performance is only as good or as bad as you feel it is. The important thing for us while playing is to embrace new and unexpected ideas as they appear and trust that we will find the end of the piece somehow. I personally find it quite nice - indeed, very liberating - to be able to discover and enjoy the music as it reveals itself, instead of judging myself on how I am playing something that already exists as a composition for which I have certain set expectations.
SA: Lastly, what’s on the agenda for Kamancello next in 2017? All the best, and thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!
KA: We plan on releasing our first full-length album later this year, likely in September. In the meantime, we have a few more videos slated to come out in the coming months. We will be performing in Ottawa again and playing a number of other shows in Ontario and Quebec over the course of the spring and summer.
