CRIMSON (Nihâvend saz semâî)
Nahāvand is a small city in western Iran that has been inhabited since Prehistoric times, and is known for its high-quality Persian rugs and other handicrafts. It is also the town that gave its name to the homonymous Arabic maqam and its Ottoman counterpart Nihâvend. Modulations set aside, makam Nihâvend resembles a conventional minor scale and is fairly accessible to Western ears. On Erato I use this mode as point of departure and return of a journey: through time, through space, between melancholic and optimistic, vigorous and fragile, solemn and lush, light and dark, and all the other flavours and colours offered by the modes I used. The colour of this piece, I’m sure you’ll see, is crimson.

Erato

Kairos Collective | Crimson

In 1981, Dutch musician and ethnomusicologist Wouter Swets (1930–2016) took his ensemble Čalgija to the studio to record their second album. The re­cordings were completed, but the liner notes took much more time than anticipated (probably because Swets was working on his lecture series and book on Ottoman art music at the same time). Meanwhile, Čalgija’s line-up changed to the extent that the material and performance were no longer considered representative. The project was shelved and eventually forgotten, and Swets went back to the studio in 1983 for a second attempt. While the 1981 master tapes were lost, a cassette copy turned up in the estate of Wouter Swets in 2020. Out of twelve tracks, three were redone and released on other albums. The remaining nine have been supplemented with eight live tracks from 1978.

Üçayak

Në Shkodër

Esir-i zülfünüm ey yüzü mâhım

Nji ditë diele

In 1995, producer San Graatsma invited Wouter Swets to contribute three tracks to the album Mosaique Vivant, which features music from refugees seeking asylum in the Netherlands. These were to become Čalgija's last recordings. Shortly after they were made, veteran members Tjarko ten Have and Jan Hofmeijer left the group, which had already lost percussionist Jan van Eekeren and lutist/singer Naim Avcı (who featured on Music from the Balkans and Anatolia #2). Swets, Roel Sluis and recent members Joost Rekveld and Kamil Abbas were joined by Yannis Kyriakides and Magnus Robb, and continued as Ensemble Al Farabi, playing a different, more modal, less folkloristic, repertoire. Unfortunately, Mosaique Vivant has never been released as a digital album. The limited-edition CD has for long been out of print; second-hand copies are occasionally available.

Mosaique Vivant

Girip Naxsisi

The second album that was to be Čalgija’s second, recorded in the mid-1980s, all ready for production, never released in its entirety, but partly recycled on their 1991 album. Rediscovered and digitised in 2019, with five unreleased studio tracks, supplemented with one live track from 1978 and five from 1983.

Unforgotten

Krivo horo

Music from the Balkans and Anatolia #1 is Čalgija’s acclaimed debut album, originally released on LP by Münich Records in 1978 and as a digital album by Pan Records in 2013. The original liner notes are published on TouMilou.nl as supplementary material to the digital album.

Music from the Balkans and Anatolia #1

Kostantis

This album primarily explores Al Farabi's musical director Wouter Swets’ idea that Western Gregorian hymns once resembled Eastern ilâhîler, their Islamic counterparts, in terms of tonality and metric structure. In addition to that, Sabâ Kâr-ı Nâtık, İlâhîler, Gregorian Hymns features an alternative, reconstructed, version of a composition by Zekâi Dede (1825–1897), which Swets thought was deliberately published in a corrupted form. The album has never been released digitally.

Sabâ Kar-ı Natık, Ilâhîler, Gregorian Hymns

Pange lingua

Ey Hudâ, ben eylerim

Tamamlatti Sabâ

Buyruk senin

Zâhidâ sûret

Decora lux

Biçareyim

Caelestis aula nuntius

Muhammed'e bir gece

Radio performance by Čalgija on 26 December 1973 of a titleless Northern Albanian folksong. The track is uploaded as supplementary material to the album Erato by Kairos Collective (https://toumilou.nl/kairos-collective-erato/), which features the piece under the name 'Blackcap' [2]. The recording was kindly shared from the Endendijk Collection (https://www.tradmusictrails.com/),

Northern Albanian folksong (Čalgija, 1973)

Clips from the album Pîrî Reis:
00:00.0 Şehnaz Yürük Semâî
00:48.7 Kürdî Saz Semâî «Zaman Yolcusu»
02:07.6 Ανάμνηση | Anamnisi
02:43.4 Dügah Saz Semâî
03:49.8 Nev-Eser Peşrev «Muhabbet»
04:30.8 Nihâvend Saz Semâî «Το Λαϊκό | To Laiko»

Compositions, arrangements and production: Michiel van der Meulen

Musicians: Manolis Kanakakis: kanun | Marijia Katsouna: percussion | Harris Lambrakis: ney | Yorgos Mavromanolakis: oud | Giorgos Papaioannou: violin

Recording, mix and mastering: Vangelis Apostolou - Studio Vasmaris, Heraklion, Greece, 13-16 November 2016

Pîrî Reis

Pîrî Reis album sampler

Európe - Contemporary Modal Music 
This album is a homage to a continent and three of its inhabitants. To Europe because it is such a great place,  where travelling a thousand kilometres in any direction will bring you into another world. Where West and East  meet and blend and beautiful things happen. To my father Albert van der Meulen (1940), who thoroughly infused  me with music from the Balkans, the closest he could get in Europe to his own oriental roots. To ethnomusicologist  and musician Wouter Swets (1930-2016), who introduced music from the Balkans and the Middle East to Dutch  audiences and educated two generations of musicians in these styles. To master musician and composer Ross  Daly (1950), with whom I study modal composition, who showed me the modal fabric of the music I was born with  but not born into, and helped me find my musical voice.

Európe

Európe album sampler

The micro record label TouMilou was established primarily to release and distribute the albums of Michiel van der Meulen independently. The catalogue also includes albums by Čalgija he produced. Most tracks on this SoundCloud profile are samples of albums by Čalgija and its successor ensemble Al Farabi.

Toumilou Music

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