Twenty years of war and the Taliban’s systematic repression has taken its toll on Afghanistan’s instrumental music world. With a little searching, one might be able to find historical field recordings from thirty years ago, or current synthesizer pop music made in the Afghan diaspora, but the vitality and immediacy of traditional artists making music for our times is largely missing.

As the world music scene explodes, the true music of Afghanistan has been conspicuously absent—until now.

Quraishi’s sensitive interpretations form a living and vital link between the rich
tradition of the Afghan classical court music, the golden years of Afghan radio, the
musical realities of today’s diverse immigrant communities, and the future of a nation’s musical identity. It is astonishing how two musicians engaged in musical conversation
can coax so much sound and feeling and so many variations from such simple acoustic
instruments.

No effects here. Just virtuosity.










































PURE & TRUE RUBAB
© 2004 EverGreene Music

Album available online at:









THE ARTIST, QURAISHI
Quraishi's earliest influences and family lineage include musicians and instrument
makers. His father made him his first rubab as a young man. While growing up in
Kabul, the self-taught artist became quickly well-versed in the folk styles and regional genres of the numerous ethnic groups found throughout Afghanistan, including the Pashtu, Uzbek, Tajik, and others. Quraishi also steeped himself in the discipline and formalistic principals of classical Hindustani music theory that constitutes the
foundation of Afghanistan's art music. Technically, Quraishi possesses a masterful
sense of rhythm and an acute ear. But it is his poetic heart that moves his listeners
with his sensitive interpretations of the classical repertoire infused with his fresh and youthful expressions on his original compositions.

THE DRUMMER, CHATRAM SHANI
Chatram Sahni is a drummer par excellence, having served his apprenticeship playing
on Afghan radio in the 70's. A favorite accompanist for all the famous Afghan singers, Chatram knows all the traditional Afghan rhythms.

THE INSTRUMENT, RUBAB
The rubab, an ancient instrument with a skin face belonging to the short neck lute
family, is the national instrument of Afghanistan. It is traditionally mad with a single
piece of mulberry wood, which is mystically associated with the silkworm. There are typically three melody strings (now most often made of gut or nylon) and as many as twenty sympathetic strings that are variably tuned to the modes or ragas. These sympathetic strings impart a deep resonance and unique timbre to the rubab. The instrument is often richly ornamented with inlay of bone and ivory, and occasionally encrusted with lapis lazuli, mother of pearl, or other modern materials.

PURE & TRUE RUBAB
Afghan music is unique in its richness, range, and variety, evoking a strong sense
of place. Strategically situated at the center of the ancient Silk Road, the land can be
heard in the intricacies of the music—one senses the vastness of wild mountains in
the rhythms, as well as the loneliness of the desert in the melodies. Certainly, the
influence of the Indian subcontinent can be heard in the ragas and instrumentation,
but the simple and haunting strains of China and the Far East are also evident in the
use of pentatonic scales. The Central Asian shashmaquam from Samarakhan can
also be made out in certain Uzbek and Tajik tunes, or the ornamentation typical of the Persian Radif as found in the music from the western part of the country, especially
the city of Herat. But if one listens closely, there is also the hint of something more—
the minor scales of the Middle East and the intricate melodies that intertwine like Greek rebetika, recalling the playfulness and invention of Celtic music, the soulfulness of the American blues, or the improvisations of modern jazz.

At times, the rocking back beat will make you want to dance. Ecstatic states are often
the result of the musicians steadily increasing the tempo—that is, until they decide to
have a little fun by stopping in mid-song as they would in Loggari-style music. At other times, meditative contemplation is the order. With a depth of feeling, call and response phrases are repeated between musicians, creating the hypnotic, mesmerizing trance-
like quality of a Sufi Zikar, connecting the music back to its roots in mystical Sufi poets
and the ghazals they wrote. Rumi—though most often associated with the whirling dervishes of Turkey—was, after all, originally from Afghanistan.









































JANUARY 22, 2010
Quraishi featured on Mondomix Music

Quraishi's Pure and True Rubab is featured as this week's Discovery from Asia on Mondomix Music.com, a National Geographic-affiliated world music site based in Paris. Read the full article here.


DECEMBER 2007
Music of Quraishi Featured in The Kite Runner



Quraishi's beautiful music from Pure & True Rubab was featured in the DreamWorks/Paramount Vantage movie adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's novel The
Kite Runner. The film has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards (Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Score) and an Academy Award (Best Original Score).









































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"Explore and discover the music of Afghanistan. Featuring the haunting call of the
rubab, an instrument closely related to the lute and the national instrument of
Afghanistan, the album explores the many moods and emotions of the rubab, often
joined by the dhol, a double-headed Afghani drum. One can hear the vast and many influences from Indian classical music to that of Middle East and the Far East. Evoking imagery from the dramatic mountains to the vast deserts, Pure & True Rubab is an excellent addition to a world music collection for both the beginning enthusiast and the academic."
—Five-Star Review from CD Baby (2004)