Tuesday July 26 * 7pm * MASKS, VAX REQUIRED

The Caribbean

"You’re forced to occupy their barren pop architecture…. You don’t understand it, but, though you might not admit it, you do hope it will understand you. Or at least not destroy you…. You feel like there’s a real live pop song in there somewhere, but it seems that most of the essential moments have been recorded over with silence or incidental noise. There’s obviously still a skeleton to hang a song on, but you start to wonder whether you’re the one who was supposed to bring it…. These songs are for real, but they’re not about disappointment, or complacency, or shame, or attention, or glee. They’re about themselves. Without ironic distance, such oblique experiments can seem exhausting. But only on the giving end: it takes a humble and prolific writer, some cunning musicians, a very patient engineer, and an overarching commitment to self-censorship to pull an album like this off."
-Pitchfork

Kamyar Arsani

Kamyar Arsani, a scholar of the DAF _ the Iranian frame drum _is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter based in Washington D.C area. Through his solo work and numerous collaborations, Arsani creates music across an array of styles, ranging from classical Persian music to genre-defying electronic experimentation.