London-born singer-songwriter Azadeh shares her debut single ‘The Cure’ this August, unearthing a musical talent that holds audiences captivated with her unique songwriting ability and enchanting vocal style. The first track from an upcoming EP, ‘The Cure’  is an ode to overcoming fear, finding your inner power and never giving up on your creativity. It’s a track that marks the emergence of what’s sure to be a stunning musical journey. 

While this track marks her solo debut as Azadeh, the London songwriter has an enviable wealth of musical experience to call upon. Being of Persian descent, she has crafted a catalogue of her own unique fusion of Western Folk inspired Persian songs. This soon lead to support from BBC Persian and performances at the Edinburgh Iranian Festival and the San Francisco Yerba Buena Centre celebrating Diaspora Women in Music. She’s also embarked on solo UK tours with the likes of Robert Cray, Jools Holland, Melanie C, Deacon Blue and Status Quo. She’s also graced the stages of some of the UK’s best-known venues including The Union Chapel, The Barbican Theatre, Liverpool Echo Arena, London’s Roundhouse, as well as regularly playing the famed Hotel Café in Los Angeles. Her vocal talent was also recognised by acclaimed rapper Lil Dicky who had her feature on his track ‘Really Scared’.  She recently wrote and sang with devotional grammy award winner Snatam Kaur.

Currently performing alongside Faithless front-man Maxi Jazz’s new band, the talented songwriter is taking time to pursue her own artistic goals. 

By Aidan Grant

The Guru Viking Podcast specializes in in-depth interviews with remarkable figures in the world of meditation, spirituality, and self development.

Steve travels internationally teaching somatic practices and meditation, and leads explorations in contemplative, mystic, & relational realms.

Listen to international teacher and relationship expert, Michaela Boehm, as she answers questions about intimacy, dating and relationships. 

Learn how to create 'the spark', and keep it alive, while staying deeply connected to yourself and others in an increasingly busy world.

www.michaelaboehm.com

Michaela Boehm teaches and counsels internationally as an expert in intimacy and relationships. Born and raised in Austria, Michaela combines her training in psychology and extensive clinical counseling experience with her in-depth training in the yogic arts. A gifted speaker and counselor, her unique body of work centers on the intersection of intimacy and embodiment. Known for her work with high-performing individuals, her ongoing private clients include Oscar-winning actors, multiple Grammy-winning musicians, producers, and business pioneers. Michaela is the Author of “The Wild Woman’s Way” and the founder of The Non-Linear Movement Method®, a powerful somatic release modality. Her work has recently been featured in Gwyneth Paltrow”s Netflix Show “Sex, Love & goop” and Will Smith’s bestselling memoir ‘Will’. She lives on an organic farm in California where she rescues and rehabilitates animals.

Channelled madness – the sound Dawn of Midi spent years shaping, culminating into their most mesmerising work yet

With Dysnomia, the Brooklyn-based group Dawn of Midi abandons improvisation in favour of composition, utilising sophisticated rhythmic structures from North and West African folk traditions to weave a sonic tapestry of trance-inducing grooves. From close up one may see only dots, but when stepping back an undulating image reveals itself. “We didn’t want to create anything cerebral,” says Belyamani, “we wanted something visceral, something that would awaken our instinctive dance impulses.”
Having met at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles in 2006, bassist Aakaash Israni, pianist Amino Belyamani and drummer Qasim Naqvi found their original rapport through late night tennis matches on the campus court. The chemistry they founded there eventually led them back indoors to improvise together; something they did in total darkness to deprive themselves of all their senses except the crucial one – their hearing.
The manner, by which a trio of solely acoustic instruments ends up sounding like electronic music, has to do with the unconventional ways the group play their instruments on Dysnomia. The record comes to life in the trio’s critically acclaimed live shows, a test of endurance and trust that involves performing their hand-looped acoustic minimalism note for note, just as the compositions were recorded. Dawn of Midi’s sets are as energetic and rhythmic as a seamlessly mixed DJ-set, mesmerising fans in the same way the group’s favourite experimental and electronic acts have for decades.
The album was recorded to 2-inch tape at Waterfront Studios in Hudson, New York - a former church that was purchased and transformed into an analogue recording playground by the great engineer Henry Hirsch. Once the band visited the studio and met Henry, an expert in analogue recording equipped with a vintage Helios console, 16 and 24-track tape machines and a superb collection of microphones, it was obvious they had to record there; it was miles ahead of anywhere else they had visited. Rusty Santos then mixed the album to make sure it would hit as hard as the group’s favourite electronic albums do in spite of it being entirely acoustic.
“We wanted to make a record that sounded both musically futuristic and sonically vintage,” explains Israni, “and since the album never saw a proper international release, it is very exciting to see what might happen when more people are exposed to it. And to be aligned with Erased Tapes, whose enthusiasm for the music they release has done a lot for exposing unique instrumental and electronic music, makes it that much more interesting.”

Dysnomia will be released worldwide on June 1st, 2015 through Erased Tapes – available on 2x LP, CD and Download.

This page is a link to past projects and audio files for lessons on my Guitarchitecture.org page.

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