Holger Czukay. London, January 1974/Michael Putland/Getty Images
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
The quasi-experimental German rock band Can always had rather strong connections with the East. Take, for example, their Japanese vocalist, Damo Suzuki, or the many Turkish echoes in their album names. However, the song ‘Persian Love’ from their ex-member Holger Czukay's debut solo album Movies (1979) is something altogether different and quite phenomenal. In this song, Czukay basically laid the foundations of modern-day sampling, manually putting together fragments of Iranian chants that he obtained from the shortwave radio (one can hear the voice of the famous singer Marzieh in particular). Brian Eno, who was present for some of the Cologne studio sessions, would subsequently actively use this technique.
‘Persian Love’ is a serious and complicated step in the development of the world music genre itself, which would fully blossom in the 1980s.